


Bound by Blood

by 27dragons, tisfan



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood Drinking, Human Experimentation (mentioned), Kidnapping, M/M, Sex, Vampire!Bucky Barnes, continuity is for wimps, don't try to math out the timeline, genre-typical violence and gore, human!Tony Stark, minor/background Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, vampiric shapeshifting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2020-12-28 01:20:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 45,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21128426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/27dragons/pseuds/27dragons, https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: Tony’s bored. He’s bored with the party lifestyle. He’s bored with dull companions and things that should be exciting but are mostly just tedious. When he decides to ski an unmarked path down the side of a Swiss mountain, he’s not looking for trouble, just something to relieve the tedium.An avalanche is, possibly, a little more excitement than he was hoping for. As was the dead body he discovered in the cave where he took shelter. And that was before the corpse sat up and talked to him.Now, boredom is the furthest thing from Tony’s mind.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Requested Content Warning: Our vampires have the ability to cloud people's feelings / suppress fear. Bucky uses this initially to feed off Tony and can be considered non-consensual blood drinking. This ability is NOT used in any sexual situations.

Tony stood at the top of the run, watching the other skiers and snowboarders making their way down. This path was fairly clear and only had a few obstacles, and Tony was _bored_ with it.

He adjusted his grip on his board and shuffled over the pack toward the far side of the hill to peer down curiously. There wasn’t a trail marker on this side at all, but if Tony was calculating correctly, he could swerve to the right just after the big drop leveled out a little and he’d end up closer to the lodge than the official run did. There wasn’t a warning marker up to indicate cliffs or ravines, either, so it wasn’t _impossible_. Just not advised.

There were a lot of trees on this side of the hill. Some obvious boulders sticking up out of the snow, so probably some hidden ones under it. Dips and traps.

A _challenge_.

Tony glanced back over his shoulder to make sure no one was coming up the lift who’d see him take off -- he didn’t need to be reported and kicked out of the resort, or for some intermediate-level boarder to think they had plenty of experience for this sort of thing and try to follow him.

The coast was clear.

Tony dropped his board and set one foot on it, locking in his boot and sliding it back and forth a little to test the pack. He took another long look down the hill, planning his path. Rhodey was totally going to be buying the drinks tonight.

Rhodey was back at the lodge with Carol and Jan and Christine -- theoretically, Christine was Tony’s date, but she’d seemed more interested in the spa and the personal massages and the clubs than she had been in actually skiing.

Jan had kept up with Tony most of yesterday, and then decided she needed a break from looking -- as she said -- like an unfashionable yeti. Rhodey had spent most of the previous evening drinking and swapping tall tales and creepy campfire stories with Carol and a few of the other guests while they sat around a firepit and roasted marshmallows and drank hot chocolate that got more and more diluted by peppermint schnapps as the night went on. He was too damn hungover to ski today, he’d reported.

It was the last day of their vacation, and then first thing in the morning it was back to the military, back to the cat-walk, and back to Stark Industries.

Tony grimaced. There was nothing interesting at SI -- no excitement, nothing fascinating to build. Just business and mergers and stock and boring stuff that he’d been doing since he was sixteen.

But today... Today was going to be awesome. Tony kicked off, leaning almost immediately to steer around a cluster of tall pines, and then bending his knees deep as he launched off a low, flat rock. Airborn, he whooped with the excitement and adrenaline rush, and then landed in an explosion of powdery snow without so much as a wobble, thankyouverymuch.

He wove around a trio of trees almost on autopilot, eyes fixed on the path in front of him, scanning for hazards.

There was a low bank of snow, almost like a path, and he hit it, sliding up inside like a surfer’s tube, and it did a nice double-back before dropping him about five feet off the side of a steep hill. He landed well, but there was a shaky rumble, like the low menace of thunder. The pack was less secure and the board foundered a bit as he sank into it.

The ground shuddered and shook under him.

Tony risked a glance over his shoulder and--

Behind him, a deep crack appeared in what was a wall of ice and snow, seemingly part of the mountain. Another shudder, and the crack widened until it looked like the mountain was yawning open.

Oh. Oh, _shit_. Half the snow on the goddamned mountain was about to fall down on him. He swerved sharply and started scanning the slope below him for some kind of shelter. There was no outrunning an avalanche.

_There_. That outcropping looked promising, some solid boulders that might be sufficient shelter. Maybe, if he was lucky, a crack or a cave he could squirm into. He started tacking in that direction, crouching low and leaning forward to keep his speed as high as he could manage, trying not to listen to the rumble and crack of falling snow and ice and rocks behind him, getting closer with every second.

He was almost to the outcropping when that whole bit of landscape disappeared -- collapsing into a ravine. It was too late to stop, and even though the board went out from under Tony’s feet, he skidded several yards… and went over the side.

Stars exploded behind his eyelids as he smacked his head on something solid. Rock, or a tree, it didn’t matter.

He rolled over, just long enough to see a hole in the ground, round and wide and low, like a cave or an old pipe. He crabbed toward it, not even bothering to try to get to his feet, and made it to the dubious safety of--

\-- something.

\--the entire mountain’s worth of ice and snow, torn trees and boulders, thundered over the tentative shelter, so loud he couldn’t even hear himself screaming, but he knew that he was.

Everything turned into a blur, and he wasn’t sure if that was the head wound or just that everything he could see was moving _so fast_. He scrabbled back, away from the opening, and prayed that when it was all done, he’d be able to dig out far enough to use his cell.

Assuming, of course, that he survived this at all.

After what seemed like eternity and was probably more like six or seven minutes, the world stopped shaking, leaving him in utter blackness, utter silence. He wasn’t sure if he was dead, because would he even notice? He took a deep breath, trying to steady his nerves, and while his head was still ringing from the blow, or the noise, or the adrenaline dump, he could hear the whistling suck of air in his throat, so… probably a go on the whole not-dead thing.

He would have to try to dig out. He crawled toward the opening, feeling around in the dark for the wall of snow and ice. He didn’t find it. Had he gotten turned around, with the noise and fear and pain and dizziness? It wasn’t unlikely. Carefully, he turned around, and made his way back the other way.

Farther. And farther still. No. The opening hadn’t been this far. And now he was in the middle of some... cave, or den, and his eyes were so frustrated by the utter lack of light that they were forming spots and ghost-images of their own accord. It was getting hard to even tell which direction was _up_.

He swallowed down the bite of fear and wiped at his face. His hand came away sticky, so he was bleeding, probably. Great.

Okay. All he had to do was find a wall. Any wall. And follow it. It couldn’t go on forever.

He didn’t try to stand -- god only knew if there were cracks in the floor, and without any light, he’d just get dizzy and fall over again. He crawled, slowly, cautiously, feeling in front of him with one hand.

It went on, and on, and _on_, and Tony had to detour around rock formations and stalagmites. He had _no_ idea how far he’d gone, and was beginning to wonder if he shouldn’t have just stayed put to begin with, when his hand came down on something that was decidedly not a rock. It was covered in some kind of rough cloth, and firm but yielding, like...

Like a leg?

Tony snatched his hand back, heart pounding so hard he could feel it in his throat. Nothing happened, though, and tentatively, he reached out again. A leg, yes. As cold as the stone under Tony’s other hand. Had he stumbled over a _corpse?_ Shaking, Tony fumbled in his pockets for his phone, hoping the battery was still charged enough to turn on the flashlight...

The phone managed a painfully bright light as it came on, practically blinding after Tony’s eyes had dilated so wide in the darkness. He winced, squinted, and then--

Yeah, okay, a corpse. Ancient, it seemed, based on the sunken face, the clothes that looked like something Tony hadn’t seen except in old movies. Boots with actual spats holding down khaki pants, a jacket with hand stitching, somehow suggesting military uniform. Belts that criss-crossed the body, mostly empty of the bullets that it had probably once carried.

The face was-- well, it wasn’t quite human enough to elicit any pity, just revulsion and curiosity. Dried up, somehow. There was no smell of rot; that had probably faded years ago. Withered and sunken in, eyes closed, it more resembled a mummy than a corpse; it was hard to believe it had ever been alive at all.

In one hand, the -- probably a man, based on dress, but really, there wasn’t any gendering of the mostly skeletal remains -- was clutching a metal bar of some sort.

Weird that it looked dessicated and not actually rotted, but Tony had heard of weirder things. He flashed the phone around at the rest of the cavern -- oh, _there_ was the snow and ice wall. Okay. He checked his battery, then leaned in to try to tug the jacket straight enough for him to see if there was a name on it. This guy, whoever he was, probably deserved a decent burial, once Tony had gotten out of here.

The corpse sat up.

For just a moment, Tony’s brain presented rational, scientific explanations: the corpse was old, stiff, his tugging had just pulled the whole thing upright, light as it must have been.

Sure, that was it--

Then the thing _reached _for Tony, both hands grasping, the metal bar hitting the ground with a clatter. “Soooo… thirsty….”

Tony screamed and scrambled back, hampered by the phone in one hand. He turned his ankle on a rock, but kept backing away. No no no nononono this wasn’t real this couldn’t be _real_, his mind was playing tricks on him he’d hit his head harder than he thought and was hallucinating or dreaming.

The thing slithered after him, desiccated arms dragging the body over the stones and ice. A bony hand grabbed Tony’s leg, yanked with incredible, impossible strength. The eyes-- Tony got a flash of very human eyes, grey-blue and alive, and _seeing him. _The eyes-- hard to look away, once he met that strange gaze. The fear seemed to leach out of him, fading to a sleepy warmth. “Shhh…. You don’t have to be afraid,” the thing seemed to say, although how it could be making words, it was dead, it was a corpse, any vocal cords would have long since been _useless_...

“What... what are you?” Tony wondered. He watched as it came closer still, drowsily aware that this should be terrifying, that he had been terrified only a moment ago, that he should try to get away, but he was unable to summon any emotion stronger than curiosity. “What are you going to do to me?”

The thing took Tony’s hand in its bony fingers and Tony could have sworn he smelled something sweet, like roses and spices, felt a heated breath against his skin. And the creature lowered its face to Tony’s hand.

A long, almost snake-like tongue extended, and lapped at the sticky wetness on Tony’s fingers, rough laps and when the creature looked up again, it seemed… more filled out, like an old balloon that had a few breaths of air added to it. “So-- so thirsty,” it repeated, the voice prettier, somehow. Rough and low and… kind?

That had to be some kind of trick of the light. “You want-- I’ve got a water bottle here, I think? You can have it.” Tony felt for the narrow canteen he kept clipped to his belt.

“No… no water,” the creature said. “Shhh. Look… look up at me…” The face was… even more filled out, narrow and angular, hungry, like someone who’d been on very short rations for a long time, a prisoner of war, a famine victim. “It won’t hurt… shhh. Just let me.” It was crawling over him, a mockery of an ardent lover, one bony hand reaching for Tony’s face, as if to brush a loving caress on his cheek.

Once he’d looked into those eyes again, Tony couldn’t look away. They were so bright, so vibrant, even in the relatively weak light of his phone flashlight. The fingers brushed over his cheek, gently tipped his head to the side, and Tony obeyed their delicate command without thinking.

“There we go,” the creature said, and then… there was a sharp pain in Tony’s throat, piercing and forcing his back to arch up, hands scrabbling uselessly at the creature as fear awakened once again, a spike of panic and horror. The thing fastened its mouth on the wound, and--

Everything went soft and warm and easy.

Fear and pain faded away again, and Tony’s hands, which had been trying to push the thing _off him_, went lax, and then tightened in an embrace.

There was a faint pulling sensation at the wound.

The creature made a soft, desperate sound and then pulled back a little, to look at Tony again.

It had changed utterly in that single moment.

Instead of a desiccated corpse, grey skin stretched over a skull, patchy hair the no-color of sand and rain, it was a man.

Or an angel. It was hard to tell.

_Beautiful_, his eyes sparkling against marble-pale skin, thick brown hair that curled around Tony’s fingers, high, perfect cheekbones, a cleft chin, and full lips. Full lips that were stained with Tony’s blood, that moved to reveal razor fangs.

“Oh,” Tony said. He should probably feel more surprised than he was. More frightened. But he wasn’t. A vampire. Of course. That made perfect sense, somehow.

He reached up and touched those blood-stained lips, traced the line of one long fang. His phone fell from half-numbed fingers and clattered to the floor, shutting off and leaving them in the darkness again. Somehow, he could still see the vampire’s face, even though everything else was black.

“I’ve got you,” the vampire told him. “It’s all right, I won’t hurt you, promise. Little more, it’s been a long time, so-- so long. You’re so sweet. What’s your name, love?”

Name. He had a name. What was it? He licked his lips, trying to remember how his voice worked. “Tony,” he whispered. The vampire was so _beautiful_.

The vampire purred against Tony’s throat, sucking at the wound, and everything was beautiful and light and he didn’t hurt at all. Not the wound on his head, not his twisted ankle, not the cold. Everything was warmth and peace, better than the best drugs Tony had ever tried. The vampire would take care of him, everything was going to be just--

The vampire was writhing against him, heat and need, and-- oh. There was an erection pressing against Tony’s thigh, he could feel it even through layers of snowpants and thermal underwear. “So sweet,” the vampire murmured. “Tony… Tony, my Tony, I have you. _Mine_.”

“Yours,” Tony agreed. The world was spinning around them, but Tony didn’t feel dizzy at all. He felt solid, more stable than possibly ever before in his life. He closed his eyes, he thought, but the vampire’s face still smiled at him, the vampire’s warmth still curled around him. “Yours.”

After a long, endless, perfect time, the vampire pulled back again, still keeping a hand on Tony’s wrist, holding him. Comforting him, or soothing him, it was hard to tell. “You’re very lovely,” the vampire told him. “So warm. So alive--” The vampire leaned over him, not to touch the wound at his throat again, little more than a warm throb under his skin, but to sniff at Tony like a hunting hound.

Tony shouldn’t have been able to see, except somehow, he _could_. The vampire suddenly looked worried, or he was worried and Tony was feeling what the vampire was feeling or…

“Crap. Oh, _shit_, oh-- Tony, hang on, wake up. Come on, Tony, come on, I didn’t mean to, shit shit shit--” and the vampire was struggling to get Tony into a seated position, to hold him up so he was braced between strong thighs, resting against the vampire’s chest. “Here, here, drink this, my love, drink it. Damn you, open your mouth and _drink it_.”

Tony wasn’t thirsty, really, just so _tired_, but the vampire was so insistent. Tony would have a drink, a little one, and then maybe he could nap. It was warm and comfortable, snuggled against the vampire’s chest. He licked his lips again, and there was something else there, something the vampire was holding to them, so he licked that instead, and swallowed.

It was hot, searing, like a gulp of coffee taken too soon, burning its way down his esophagus and into his stomach. The heat spread from there, refusing to be diluted.

Another swallow, and it was the heat of really great sex, that incandescent moment just before orgasm. Tony gasped, and found himself with another mouthful. And another. And another.

“There you are,” the vampire crooned. “I’m sorry, so sorry. Feeling better now?” The vampire tugged -- it was his wrist, a bloody smear down that perfect skin -- away from Tony’s mouth, leaving him nearly breathless. “You scared me.”

“Did I?” Tony didn’t feel so tired anymore, but his head was spinning a little, leaving him a bit dazed. “Why--” He looked around the cavern. “Why can I _see?_”

“Vampire parlor trick,” the vampire said, laughing a little bitterly. “Theologically speaking, I glow in the dark. A little bit. Enough. And you’ve my blood in you, now, and yours in me. You can see whatever I can see.”

Tony turned that over in his head a little. “That doesn’t make any sense,” he complained.

The vampire rubbed a hand over Tony’s chest. “Nothing about sight makes sense, my love. Did you know we see everything upside down and backward? I read that. Our brains just flip it over so we can see. It doesn’t really matter that it doesn’t make sense, does it? If a thing works. So many things I can do that make no sense.” The vampire continued to pet Tony, holding him. Sometimes brushing his nose and mouth through Tony’s hair in a soft kiss.

“...S’pose,” Tony agreed reluctantly. “So... what now? Is this, like, a Renfield sort of situation? Am I going to start eating flies and babbling nonsense about my master to everyone?” The thought wasn’t nearly as alarming as it ought to have been.

“Um, the eating bugs part is completely up to you, my love,” the vampire told him. “Are we so common these days that you know the stories? When… I’ve been asleep for quite a while, I think. But we all know about Dracula.” And he said it was that Slavic accent, _Dra-coolya_.

“Until a few minutes ago, I was one hundred percent certain vampires were a myth,” Tony said. “Down to about... forty percent, now. This could still be a hallucination. I hit my head pretty hard. But vampire movies are fun. ...Well, most of them. Some of them should be avoided at all costs. You definitely do not sparkle.” He plucked at the sleeve of the vampire’s jacket. “This looks like... what, World War One? Two? Somewhere in the first half of the twentieth, anyway; fashion isn’t my field. I’d need Jan for that.”

“The great war,” the vampire said. “The war to end all wars. Ridiculous, as if men will ever give up bashing each other over the head. It was… 1940 and four when I… well, I fell quite a long way and there was not enough blood left in this body to heal myself. I got out of the sun and waited for rescue, but no rescue was coming, I suppose. What is the year, now?”

“Twenty-nineteen. Oh, man, you’ve missed out on so much stuff. And you never did answer my question. What happens now?”

The vampire cuddled him closer, holding on. “I don’t know, my love. I can tell you what will happen to you now, but what you do with it… that’s your road to follow. You saved my… well, I can’t say you saved my life, but… my existence. You are owed. I am very much in your debt. But don’t worry. You’re not a vampire. You won’t die from this. I didn’t go quite that far.” Tony got another squeeze, and another kiss after that, as if the vampire was relieved that this was the case.

“Well, I guess that’s good,” Tony said. It was, right? It was hard to tell. He wasn’t nearly so sleepy anymore, but his sense of urgency, his perceptions of things, seemed to be muffled. “So if I’m not a vampire, and you didn’t Renfield me, then... what? I go back to the lodge and go on about my life? Seems a bit anticlimactic.”

“If you need a name to call yourself,” the vampire said, “you’re my _thrall_. Always sounded a bit slave-and-master to me, so I don’t personally use it. You’ll be stronger, faster. That’s caused by my blood in your veins. It will… wear off in time. There may be other effects; prophetic dreams, mild telepathy. The ability to talk to certain animals -- wolves, bats, things like that. It will grow weaker, if you taste no more of my blood.”

“Huh. That’s kind of cool.” Tony considered it. “How long does it take to wear off?”

“A month or two,” the vampire said. “Half a year, at the very most. In a year, you’ll convince yourself this was only a dream. That I was never real at all.”

Tony was already about half-convinced of that, anyway. That weird emotional muting made everything feel dreamlike. “And I’ll never see you again? That would be a shame.”

The vampire hummed thoughtfully, but didn’t answer, soothing Tony’s worries with a warm hand, keeping him close. Some time passed, Tony wasn’t sure how much, really, and then the vampire stirred. “They’re looking for you,” he said. “Come, I’ll take you as far as the entrance. It’s daytime; it would be best if you didn’t mention me.”

“Yeah, I don’t think that would go over well,” Tony agreed. He let the vampire help him up -- practically lifting Tony like a toddler -- and lead him back to the entrance to the cave. “What do I call you?” he asked. “Not for them. For me.”

“My name?” the vampire asked, looking startled. “No one’s… really called me by name in a long time. I was born James Buchanan Barnes. My friends called me Bucky, when I was still alive.”

“Bucky,” Tony repeated. “That does not sound like a name a vampire should have.” The dichotomy amused him. “What do people call you, if they don’t use your name?”

“The Winter Soldier,” Bucky said. “Here you are, just sit here, they’ll dig through to you in a moment. _Listen_, can you hear it?”

Tony frowned and closed his eyes, listening hard. Very, very faintly, he heard the sound of shovels, voices shouting. It seemed impossibly far away. “I can hear it!” He turned to Bucky, excited -- but the vampire was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

Bucky brushed his hand one last time against Tony’s back -- _his thrall, his beloved_, the animal, possessive, demonic side of his nature hissed at him -- and a single claw extended. He clipped a lock of Tony’s hair, just behind the ear, so quick and so subtle that it would go all but unnoticed. Holding his token to his chest, Bucky let himself fade into mist and dreams. A single breath of air was all it took, and he was intangible, unseeable. The perfect spy.

The boy -- well, man, but he seemed very young to Bucky -- had his eyes closed, was learning to listen in the way of the vampire. And when he opened those soft, doe eyes again, he couldn’t see Bucky.

The ability to see through the mist; well, that took skill and practice, even with a vampire’s enhanced senses. At most, Tony would feel as if he was being watched, looked out for. The vampire’s mist form often gave mortals a sense of being watched. An itch between the shoulder blades. But most of them didn’t know what it meant; or didn’t believe it.

A vampire could operate for decades in the spaces where people didn’t believe.

“Bucky?” Tony looked around, peering into the shadows of the cavern, then rubbed at his forehead, near the bruises and wound. “Shit. Okay. Okay, I’m...” He shook his head, wincing, and then started digging at the packed snow, himself. “Hey! Hey, I’m down here!”

Bucky pulled back as far as he could, to avoid the light when the cavern was opened. From the shadows he watched as another man entered the cave, snow all on his clothes and panic on his features. He swept Tony into a fierce embrace -- _mine, don’t you touch him_ \-- and scolding him like a child. 

“So, how was your skiing adventure?” the man scolded. “Next time, you stay with me, okay? Okay?”

Bucky let himself drift as close as he could, just a finger’s width from the sunlight. The bursts of color around Tony’s aura were comforting; fondness, relief, amusement. This was someone he knew, someone he trusted. Someone who would keep him safe. _Didn’t do a good job of it, did he?_

_Shut up, _Bucky told that part of himself. _You don’t own people._

His sire had told him that would go away; as Bucky stayed young over time, the unending afterlife of a vampire, that he would view the humans, the _mortals_, as tools and food. The way a mortal might view a pet chicken. His attachment to them would fade, as mortal lives were brief, snuffed out like a candle.

Tony let his friend fuss over him good-naturedly, and then they gathered the remnants of Tony’s gear and carefully climbed back up out of the cavern, into the light. Tony was chattering something about _crazy dreams_, but he wasn’t offering any details. The friend wasn’t really listening, focusing mostly on trying to convince Tony to see the doctor.

Tony was in good hands, Bucky decided, and he drifted back into the cave. The safe place he’d found, could it really be seventy five years ago? Seventy five years that he’d spent, adrift in dreams, barely clinging to existence. Painfully thirsty whenever he was awake, but too weak to seek prey. Too weak even to call an animal to him, to take that pitiful vitae and gain some sustenance. 

Seventy-five years, in the Torpor. The great sleep. He’d known a few who’d slept, either through choice or injury, many decades. Torpor was the last step, before the final death. Bucky willed himself solid again. No point in wasting the gift of Tony’s blood, now that the mortals were gone. If he was careful, the blood could last him weeks before thirst would force him to drink again.

Most mortals didn’t even know. He could graze; a nibble here, a soft bite there. They might feel a little poorly the next day. _Didn’t sleep well, woke up on the wrong side of the bed, just not feeling myself today, must be coming down with something. _And they’d never even know, remember nothing, but Bucky could live that way. And they would live, and he wouldn’t be a risk to them, nor they to him.

Tony would go, and in a night or so, Bucky would leave this place, discover what had happened in the world since he last gazed on it. See if any of his power base remained.

Bucky saw a flicker of light, and he reached out, picking up the little square that Tony had wielded against him, an electric torch, or some sort of weapon, Bucky didn’t know. Picked it up and looked at it. 

_Starkphone_, it said on the back. Huh. Bucky knew what a phone was, but this looked nothing like one. Well, he’d _missed some stuff_, as Tony put it.

Rest, for the remainder of the day. And then leave.

Maybe… maybe he’d return Tony’s _phone _to him, before he left. 

Bucky found a hollow niche in the stone floor, where his body had rested so many years, and settled back into it. _Think of me, darling. _He closed his eyes, and let his mind go-- let it drift to see what Tony was doing, following the psychic link of his blood in Tony’s veins, and Tony’s blood in his own. A double bond, really, feeding and gifting so close together. It might take… quite a while to fade, no matter what he’d told Tony.

Tony and his friend had joined other friends. He was assuring them of his well-being, telling the tale, it seemed, of his daredevil rush down the mountainside. His hands waved excitedly, his laugh was warm and happy.

One of them brought him a drink, and he took it, but barely sipped before setting it aside to continue talking, joking and teasing.

Bucky couldn’t go far from Tony’s side, bound as he was to the bright call of Tony’s blood. He listened and watched. Strangely dressed people fussed over Tony. And it was very bright, so much light. More than Bucky had seen since his days of sunlight had passed. Astonishing. The mortals had little devices -- like Tony’s _phone_ that they poked at and peered at. Bucky tried to twist around to see what they were doing, but it was all a blur of color, barely comprehensible, especially since Tony wasn’t looking at it.

Music -- of a sort -- was playing nearby, and when Bucky finally tracked that down, it seemed to be coming from a white bug that a man had shoved in his ear. 

Very strange.

Bucky’s sire had told him that his fascination with mortals would fade, that he would care for them less, over time. What he hadn’t said was that aching loneliness would take its place. Bucky wished -- yearned for it with an ache that made his throat hurt -- he could sit, chatting casually with a group of friends. Touch someone and not have them stare at him, sensing his differentness, his alieness.

Tony’s drink was barely touched, his food even less so. Bucky wondered if there was something wrong with Tony, if he was sick, somehow. Any human illness wouldn’t last long against the healing of vampiric blood. 

Bucky touched Tony’s face with a noncorporeal hands. “Eat something, little love,” he said. “You need your strength.” And then he let go, let himself pass over and away from Tony, seeking any traces of his blood, of his tribe, in the Veil. 

His sire, bright and bloated and fat as a tick, he avoided, veered away from those signs when he came near. The black clots that were his brothers and sisters, thralled to their sire the way Bucky once had been, those too, he didn’t touch.

_Peggy, Peggy, love, where are you?_

Seventy-five years was a long time. Longer even than maybe Bucky’s blood could sustain her.

Bucky reached, stretched…

Snapped back, exhausted and useless… and aware that the sun had set.

He sat up, brushed himself off. He would… he would need help.

“Forgive me, Tony,” he said to the cave, “but I’m not sure I can do this without you.”

He checked Tony’s _phone_ and it was still secure in Bucky’s pocket. There was nothing left of Bucky’s gear from that last mission, so the only thing to do was find Tony.

And that was as easy as following his nose.

***

There was some sort of party happening at the big lodge. Lights brighter than any Bucky had known. Music that, even from outside, thumped painfully at his eardrums. The scents of alcohol and sweat and lust. Tony was in there, with his friends and dozens of other people. They were dancing, or something like it. Tony had a glass of something in his hand, but he wasn’t paying much attention to it.

Some girl pressed up against him, wriggling lewdly. Tony smiled at her, but it wasn’t a smile with any joy in it. He said something, gently pried her arms from around his neck, and deposited her on another man nearby before twisting his way through the crowd.

Bucky moved from shadow to shadow like the edge of a thought. Even in the brightness, no one would see him unless he _wanted _them to. He’d made his way inside the building without issue; the owner hadn’t been there for so long there was no trace of a threshold to keep him outside. A woman in a blue cotton dress -- a housekeeper, she’d called herself -- gave him a few sips of blood and a key that opened most of the rooms. He left her with a sweet memory and a few steel pennies. She’d exclaimed over them when he showed them to her, old enough now to be of some value. But at least the money hadn’t changed. He didn’t have a lot of it, but what he did have was still spendable.

He’d need to get to his assets, and that soon. If he had any left. 

Tony slipped outside, and Bucky followed him, waiting, watching. 

It was cold outside, but while Bucky was aware, he didn’t much care. Mortal weather patterns that weren’t sunny days didn’t affect him much.

The wide patio had a view of the mountains, a few light clouds scudding across the sky to obscure the stars. There was a sliver of moon in the sky, but it was behind them.

Tony leaned on the railing, staring out over the snow without really seeing it, glass dangling from his fingertips.

He was so lovely, that if Bucky needed to breathe, he might not have been able to. As it was, his chest squeezed around an unbeating heart. He wondered if he had the right to impose at all, if it would not be better for Tony for Bucky to just… leave. Go back to sleep, let the mountains claim him as one of their own until there was nothing left.

He actually drew back; this was wrong, it was wrong and he should not do it. And he was never clumsy, vampires didn’t knock over a glass, or trip over their own feet, or cast a shadow if they didn’t wish to. But _something _\-- maybe it was just his yearning was so strong that Tony sensed it. The conflict, too much, his inner turmoil too loud.

Tony looked up, and then around, and his gaze went right to the place where Bucky was lurking. There was no better word for it, _lurking _was exactly what he was doing.

Tony smiled, wide and bright and so _happy_. “Bucky!” He left his glass on the railing and came closer, eager. “You’re real. I didn’t imagine it.”

“I-- you left this,” Bucky said, hastily, digging in the pocket of his borrowed (stolen) pants. It was a tiny pocket, barely worthy of the name, and Bucky wasn’t sure how anyone managed to carry around any of the things they needed for day to day life with pockets that were so small. He held out the small square of metal and resin.

“Oh! My phone!” Tony took it, fingers dancing over the surface. “Not even scratched,” he said proudly. He flicked at the glass, and a small picture formed over it, floating in the air. Another flick, and it was gone. “Thanks for bringing it back.” He tucked the device into his own pockets and offered Bucky that bright smile again.

“That looks _nothing _like a phone,” Bucky said, firmly, as if Tony was a bright child with a very active imagination and had to be corrected from saying there were lions under his bed or something. He hesitated. He should not ask, he could figure this out on his own, and then he sighed, because while he probably could, he might hurt people in his ignorance. Might have to steal and perhaps even kill someone while he negotiated this-- strange new world. “I don’t suppose you have a car?” 

Tony laughed, though Bucky didn’t know what made the question so funny. “Yeah, I’ve got a car,” he said, looking amused. “You need a ride somewhere?”

“Surry,” Bucky said. “That’s in England. Maybe six or seven hundred miles, I think. It would be some time before I was able to return the vehicle to you, I apologize. I must travel at night.” 

Tony considered him thoughtfully. “Can you even drive a modern car?”

“I don’t know,” Bucky admitted. “Can it be that much different? You still _have _cars, I saw them outside.” Quite a lot of them, actually. A whole building’s worth of space had been dedicated over to their storage, with a covered roof, and several layers of them, parked neatly like shelves in a grocers.

Tony’s smile turned sly, playful. “Tell you what,” he said, “why don’t we take a little spin, just down to the town and back. Won’t take more than an hour or so. And I can teach you whatever you need to learn that’s new.”

It was nearly impossible to resist that smile; like all this was Tony’s idea and Bucky wasn’t luring or tempting him into it. “All right,” Bucky agreed. “But don’t let me impose too much. Nothing looks as it should, anymore. I have no idea where I am, although I believe England is that way.” He pointed west and a little north of their current location; that at least, he knew. Cardinal directions, the phases of the moon, how long until sunrise. Those were things etched into his bones by his vampirism. He could no more forget them than he could will himself alive again.

Tony grinned. “Nah, the party was getting boring anyway. And we’re in Switzerland.”

“In my day,” Bucky said, a smile escaping him unintentionally. He sounded like his grandmother. “In my day, there was nothing here, no people. Just a high speed train, snow, and ice.”

“Was that before or after you became a creature of the night?” Tony teased. He pulled his ‘phone’ out again and tapped on it for a bit before putting it away again. “Come on, town and back. You game?” He pulled a small and decidedly odd-looking keyring from his pocket and dangled it between them.

“After,” Bucky said. He almost asked the question, then decided not to. Political questions could be very dangerous. Not to _him_, almost assuredly, but Bucky didn’t want to make an enemy. Not right now. “I came here as a soldier, already a vampire. How far is town?”

“About twenty miles,” Tony said, and grinned sharply. “Mountain roads are fun.”

There was plenty of time, and even if things went horribly wrong, he could probably find somewhere to shelter before the sun came up. It might not be as safe as a cave in the mountains, but there was really very little choice. He could only be but so cautious, if he were going to be independent at all.

He certainly wasn’t going to call on his sire for aid. “To town, then, if you please,” Bucky said, and he reached out as if to shake Tony’s hand and found himself holding it, instead, fingers twining together as if it were the most natural thing in the world. _It’s the blood bond, idiot, stop taking advantage of it._

“Great!” Tony used the grip to tug Bucky in the direction of the parking building. “I hope you like driving. It’s a pretty good driving car.”

“It’s better than packing myself in a steamer trunk and going overseas by boat,” Bucky said. “That was not what I’d call a pleasant journey.” 

They moved around the chateau, passing a few groups of people, but no one seemed to look at them oddly, or even much at all, beyond the same way they looked at all the other mortals. They weren’t strange, or attention-getting, even if they were linked hands, and looking for all the world like they were searching for a dark corner.

Now there was a thought Bucky hadn’t had in a long while; a mortal _lover_. He didn’t quite, because he was a vampire, for blood’s sake, swoon over the idea. Much as he might like to. They moved through the levels of cars, all sleek and shiny, polished and oddly rounded. Not the way he was used to cars. And then there was all the chrome and reflective surfaces that threw back Tony’s image in all directions, and Bucky’s not at all.

Tony noticed it about half a dozen cars down the row, pulling to a halt to examine the reflection in a particularly well-polished fender. “Huh. That’s a real thing? How do the physics even work? What else is real? Crosses, garlic, running water? Are you compelled to count things?”

“Some things are real, some are myth,” Bucky said. “I am not repelled by holy symbols, or water, and I can enter a church without problems. All are invited within. Faith, in the hands of a true believer, can ward me off, but there aren’t that many true believers. Or at least, there weren’t in my time. Atheism, skepticism… they’re eroding faith.” He paused, not really wanting to recount all of his weaknesses; he wanted to trust Tony, but he didn’t know if he could. “I can’t come inside your home, unless you invite me. The threshold is powerful protection.”

“But garlic’s okay? We’re not going to get along too well if you don’t like Italian.” He stopped at a low, sleek blue car and ran his hand along its frame like he was caressing the body of a lover. “Here’s my baby. One of my babies, anyway. Isn’t she gorgeous?”

“This is a _car_?” Bucky wondered. “It looks like--” Bucky didn’t even know what it looked like. A bright blue torpedo on wheels? A land-based submarine, only smaller? A wingless airplane, maybe. “It looks like a toy,” he finally decided.

Tony gave him an unimpressed look. “Get in,” he said, releasing Bucky’s hand and walking around to the passenger’s side.

Bucky had never seen anything quite as sleek as the car’s interior. Not even the curvy little bubble of blue metal that was the car itself. Leather seats, neatly stitched, lacquered wood steering wheel with a leather cover. The seats were low to the ground, clinging to the inside of the car, practically laying down to drive. Pedals… okay, that was gas and brake and clutch, he knew those.

There were about ten thousand little knobs on the dash, but-- 

Instead of a keyhole, there was a button, glowing softly green that said Engine Start/Stop.

What the hell? Bucky pushed it and the car roared to life, like some jungle cat. “Holy cow,” Bucky said, reverently. No crank, no key, just… push a button. Like magic.

He glanced at the array of knobs and levers on the dash. “So, I don’t know what these do--” he indicated the console with a wave of one hand, and then found the shifter. “But if this is still the same, then--” He pushed the clutch in, reversed the engine, and backed out of the space. Gently, because the car wasn’t his, and Tony seemed fond of it.

It didn’t hitch or splutter or anything, just moved almost as smoothly as if they were psychically connected.

“Seatbelt,” Tony said, clicking his own into place. “That’s a law, now. Don’t want to get pulled over for not having it on, since I doubt you have a valid license on you.”

Bucky didn’t quite laugh. What did he need a license for? Any mortal policeman who pulled them over would find themselves vaguely annoyed that they’d gotten out of their car for no reason. “Is that necessary? A license? How do you get one?” He glanced at Tony’s belt and then turned to tug his into place. The car stopped making one of the annoying noises it was making, so… seatbelt equaled less irritating beeps. Good to know.

“Driver’s license, ID, they’re all government-issued,” Tony said. He pointed. “That’s the road we want. We can probably put together a fake ID for you if you want, but we’ll need to figure out where you want to be _from_, first.”

“Brooklyn,” Bucky said. “That’s in New York. That’s where I was born.” 

He shifted, tapped the gas a little. The car zipped forward and Bucky leaned into the feel of it, the way the RPMs cycled. Slick engine, he thought, shifted, turned where Tony indicated. “What’s this stuff over here?” There were sticks on the sides of the wheel, knobs and indicator lights. Felt like he was in one of those nickel paperback novels that he sometimes would read, getting ready to fly. “This thing… doesn’t have retractable wings or repulsors or concealed machine guns or anything, does it?”

Tony laughed. “Not this one, no.” He started listing off the purposes of the gadgets. More than half of them didn’t make any sense at all. What did blue teeth have to do with cars? The ones that _did_ make sense were a little absurd -- special warmers for each individual seat? Whose ass got so cold it needed to be warmed up separately?

“This one?” Bucky wondered, but then they hit the road, smooth and soft and free of ice. Nothing like he’d ever seen before; they’d had old army trucks and sometimes motorcycles to work with, but this car clung to the road like it was in love, took a curve with barely a twitch of the wheel. Bucky eyed the speed dial as it climbed, shifting gears easily. “Does this car actually go over a _hundred miles an hour_?” The speedometer went easily past that, the numbers all the way up to 185, but Bucky didn’t believe that, that was someone day dreaming, after drinking too much liquid courage.

“Oh, sure,” Tony said easily. “I mean, probably on these roads you don’t want to try that. They’re pretty twisty, and she’s got great handling but inertia is still a thing. But there’s bound to be a relatively open stretch somewhere in France that you can open it up and let her go.”

Bucky didn’t quite gape like the village idiot, but it was a near thing. “I think I love the future,” he said. A hundred miles an hour easily? He could make it to Surry in a _night_. He let his hands rest on the wheel, learning the feel of the machine. There may not be many things about the future that made sense; hopefully if any of his network existed anymore at all, someone could get him current. “Do-- Do I dare ask, France is its own nation again?”

“What?” Tony blinked at him, and then shook his head. “I keep forgetting you haven’t been around for a while. Yeah, Allies took the war, hurrah for democracy and freedom.” He sounded a little less than entirely happy about that. “Nah don’t let my cynicism get you. Politics is still politics and humans are still humans, but yeah, the shit that was going on in World War Two, we managed to get that settled in our favor.”

So, they’d stopped Schmidt, even after Bucky fell off the train. “Good,” he said. “Good. France was Nazi-occupied the last I’d heard. So, it wasn’t all for nothing.” If he could have thanked a higher authority, he might have, but -- crosses not withstanding -- Bucky didn’t taint the name of the Father by letting it come out between his teeth.

He shifted again, pushed the car up to sixty. Couldn’t quite help the smile that crossed his face. He didn’t want to try for faster than that, not on these mountain roads. He stole a glance at Tony, to see if Bucky’s driving was scaring him. Bucky didn’t want Tony to be scared.

Not of him, not of Bucky’s driving, and certainly not concerned for Tony’s life. Bucky would protect him.

Tony didn’t seem at all concerned, though. He’d leaned back in his seat and was watching the road with a tiny little smile on his lips, the kind of fire in his eyes that said he was enjoying it. “I like fast cars,” he said, as if he’d pulled the thoughts out of Bucky’s head. “This isn’t even the fastest one I’ve got.”

Maybe I’ll keep you after all, Bucky found himself thinking. “What else do you like?” Bucky wondered. “Fast cars and racing down snowy slopes on little boards?”

“I’m a thrillseeker,” Tony admitted shamelessly. “I can fly pretty much anything with wings, but it’s not as visceral a thrill as driving. Surfing, parasailing, hangliding, I’ve done all those. Loud music and wild sex.”

Bucky spluttered, breath catching in his throat. “You do-- _what now_?”

“I’ll do anyone pretty enough to catch my eye.” Tony turned, head cocking to the side a bit. “They had sex in the ‘40s,” he said. “I’m pretty sure of it.”

“Well, yes,” Bucky said. If he’d still been capable of blushing, he was sure he’d be turning pink, but these days, it was an active effort to appear like he was, in fact, _alive_. So he didn’t push it, if he didn’t need to for some reason. Waste of blood. “It just wasn’t… casual conversation.” Wow, he sounded like a prude. He wasn’t -- he really was not, he’d had his fair share and then some -- he was, however, not prone to bragging, or hearing someone else talk about it like it was just another sporting event.

“Oh, that might just be me,” Tony admitted. “Had my sense of shame surgically removed when I was about eight. There’s only so many times a reporter can ambush you with questions about your playdates before you stop giving a fuck.”

Bucky’s mouth twisted, he felt it, and whatever his runaway tongue was going to ask, he bit down. It wasn’t his business, not really. He had a limited amount of time before he was going to need to separate himself from Tony, there was no point in embarrassing the man, or digging into his personal life, except when Bucky let up on his tongue, he found himself asking, “So there’s no one special?”

Which was a dangerous question, even if Tony didn’t know it. _Who will miss you, if you disappear?_

“Plenty of special people,” Tony said. “Rhodey and his girlfriend Carol, Jan...” He waved a hand as if to indicate _and so forth_. “I don’t really do long-term dating, though, if that’s what you’re asking. People _think_ they want to be in the spotlight, but it palls quick.”

“That-- you’re in the spotlight?” Bucky asked. It made sense, if Tony was used to talking to reporters. “What are you, an actor?”

“Oh, god, no. I’m... well, I’m a lot of things, but mostly what I’m known for, aside from just _being famous_, is inventing shit.”

Bucky considered that for a while; if Tony was famous, it protected him. From Bucky, most importantly. He was about to ask what sort of things Tony had invented when they took another corner and… that must be the town, although it looked absolutely nothing like any town Bucky had ever seen before. 

Clear and clean, the roads swept free of snow, brilliant lights everywhere, hundreds of cars. 

Bucky practically stood on the brakes, screeching to a halt. He pulled off the side of the road. “That’s… town? What the hell does a _city _look like?”

Tony looked at the glittering lights laid out before them, and then at Bucky. “Mostly like that,” he said. “Bigger. Taller.” He cocked his head again. “What’s got you freaked? You said you were from Brooklyn, you know what cities are.”

“It’s so… bright,” Bucky said, still staring. Everything was colorful, there were brilliantly lit signs flickering and flashing, words in fancy lettering, pictures. Colors that Bucky could barely imagine, much less name. A pink shop proclaimed ice cream and coffee, another had a giant yellow M over a tiny shop with a line of cars around it. There were more people than Bucky was used to seeing, especially at night. He could feed, _glut _himself, and no one would ever even know he’d been there.

“Oh. Yeah. Generally much more widespread use of electricity than in the ‘40’s,” Tony said. “And brighter, more efficient bulbs.”

Bucky glanced over at his passenger, his thrall, his Tony. He’d almost killed the man, drinking so deeply, so thoroughly. He took too much and then replenished it with the blood, changed by being inside Bucky’s body. Two more minutes, and he’d have been burying a neophyte. Or burning one. He hadn’t done that since he was a neophyte himself, fed unto death.

Which wasn’t to say Bucky hadn’t killed people; he most assuredly had. Mortals and vampires and others as well. But only when he _meant to_. He’d been careless and stupid with Tony’s life, and he was being careless and stupid now. But he was also afraid. Afraid of this new world where he had no support, no team, no servants and no base of operations.

He had nothing to offer Tony, either, except eternal existence. Or eternal servitude. 

“I… may need your help,” Bucky said, staring back down at what was supposed to be a little town.

“Color me not-surprised,” Tony said. “With what, exactly?”

“Best, fastest case,” Bucky said, “there exists in this world some form or sub-grouping of SSR, in which case, you can probably just bring me there, wherever they are, and they’ll… take care of me. Worst, there’s nothing. All my assets, my safe places, are gone. I’ll need to start over. Now I know how Malick felt. Poor bastard.”

“Who’s Mal-- Nevermind; I probably don’t want to know.” Tony had his phone-device out again and was flicking little glowing squares up into the air. “Let’s start with the readily-available public history, shall we? The Strategic Science Reserve was officially disbanded a few years after the war.” One of the little squares looked like an encyclopedia article, photos and text on an apparently endless sheet of magic paper. “Officer in charge retired, along with most of the senior staff-- Hey, I know this guy, I think. Dad used to have him over for dinner once in a while.” 

Bucky poked at the little piece of paper, but his fingers passed right through it. Whatever he did, though, it flickered, and then the picture was clearly visible. “Colonel Phillips. He looks _old_,” Bucky said without thinking. “Not that he was particularly young when I knew him. What about Carter? Is she even alive?”

“Cart--” Tony stared at him. “_Peggy_ Carter? You knew Peggy Carter?”

Bucky chuckled, remembering. “Her first name was _Agent_,” he said. “Or so her right hook used to say.”

“Huh. Dad used to say that, but I always thought he was making shit up. She was never anything but a sweetheart with me. Of course, she was a lot older, by then.”

A strange, almost horrifying suspicion was creeping over Bucky. “What-- what’s your surname?”

“Stark.” The corner of Tony’s mouth ticked up a little into a wry sort of humor. “Small world, huh?”

“Oh blood and _thunder_,” Bucky swore. “Howard Stark? Project Rebirth…” Bucky’s mouth kept moving, but nothing was coming out of it that was in the least bit coherent.

“Now, there’s a project I’ve heard of. Though Dad never mentioned there were any vampires involved.”

“Not very scientific,” Bucky pointed out. “Stark wasn’t necessarily a fan, but Erskine convinced him. _When what you haff is Nazi vampires, you must fight fire with fire._”

“Huh. You’d think that would’ve made its way into the reports.” Tony considered the little floating squares for a long moment, thinking. “Well, if you want to see Aunt Peggy, I can take you to her, but she’s... declining.”

Bucky didn’t need to breathe, it was an advantage to being dead was that oxygen lost its urgency, but sometimes the act of it… felt good anyway. “Tony-- I wish I could think this was a good thing, that fate, or some higher power brought us together. But you must understand how dangerous this could be, for you. To get deeper involved than you are, now.” 

Tony raised one eyebrow. “You have enemies who will stop at nothing, blah blah blah, not hesitating to threaten my frail mortal body in retaliation for your defiance, _et cetera_, _et cetera_?” He snorted. “Do you know how old I was the first time I got kidnapped?”

“Honestly, I have no idea,” Bucky said, and he wasn’t sure which question he was answering. He didn’t know if he _had _enemies; he’d sensed his sire, out there, somewhere. Which probably meant nothing good, but it had been so long since Bucky was a player in the game, he might even be discounted. And if Tony was related to Howard Stark, well, he’d probably been kidnapped for the first time shortly after he was weaned. Howard had that sort of effect on people; there was always someone who wanted to hurt him, and that frequently meant trying to hurt the people Howard cared about.

“About six,” Tony said. “Do you know how many ransoms Dad has paid for me, over the years?”

“Exactly none,” Bucky said, because that was easy to predict. “You’d think kidnappers would learn, after the first time, wouldn’t you?”

“You’d think,” Tony agreed. He looked oddly, almost defiantly proud. “I’m not afraid of danger.”

“I won’t tell you what choices you should make,” Bucky promised. _Even though I could. I could make you forget, make you leave now and never return. But I won’t do that to you. _“But I won’t take you into it blind, either. I’ll need someplace safe to stay, for the day, and I’ll tell you what I can. And then-- if you want to help me, I’ll take it and be grateful. And if you don’t wish to be involved any longer, that’s also your choice.”

He could do it on his own, if he had to, the old fashioned way. Feed, enrapture his prey, make them shelter him for the day, and then move on. It was slow, and dangerous, but he _could_ do it.

But he glanced at Tony, and at Tony’s determined, stubborn chin. And thought, well, maybe he didn’t have to do it alone.


	3. Chapter 3

Really, there was no point in going back to the ski lodge. It had been the last night, anyway. Tony texted Rhodey to let him know he’d left early, then called the lodge’s hospitality desk to arrange for a car to pick Christine up and for his luggage to be shipped home. See? Responsible. He could be responsible.

It hadn’t taken Bucky long at all to adjust to the handling of the McLaren. Supernatural reflexes, maybe. Tony didn’t care; it was nice to sit and watch the scenery go by and let someone else handle the driving. He pulled up the GPS so they could avoid any traffic snarls, and connected the Bluetooth to his phone so he could introduce Bucky to modern music.

Bucky asked questions, sometimes. How did the little woman inside his _phone _know where they were going? Why did he even call it a _phone_, since he didn’t actually talk on it much. An explanation of a cellular phone and its advances sent them straight down a rabbit hole, as Bucky asked several more questions, and then, like a child that had been sitting through an advanced math class, held up a hand. “Nope, gotta chew that up first, nothing else’s gonna make sense.”

And they travelled in silence for a while until Bucky glanced at one of the dials. “Fuel gauge says you need petrol,” he said. “An’ I wouldn’t mind a bite to eat. We’re about an hour out for sunrise, too.”

Tony blinked and looked over at the dashboard. He consulted his phone some more. “Okay, take... not the next exit, but the one after that. There’s a town where we should be able to stop for the day. You can find a snack while I get us a room.” He considered the options. “Just how much sunlight is too much?” he asked. “Windowless hotel rooms are hard to source.”

“_Any_ is too much,” Bucky said. “Direct sunlight on my skin will blister and crack and scar and won’t heal. Less than a minute in pure sunlight and I’ll be nothing but dust.” He shuddered. “I’ve seen it. Sunlighting is one of the vampire council’s worst punishments.”

“Hm. Okay. Blackout curtains, then. I think I can get that. And if even that’s too much light, well, the bathroom will be blocked off. It can’t be less comfortable than the cave where I found you, right?”

“Well, I wasn’t there on purpose,” Bucky said. “It was the closest shelter I could drag myself to. Let me tell you, that was a terrifying day. I lost so much blood in the fall, and then trying to heal enough -- my arm was completely _off_ \-- and dawn’s creeping right up my boots, practically. Got in, far enough, and… well, you know the rest. Didn’t move for seventy years.” 

That sounded moderately horrible. “I’m just saying, with an hour’s worth of lead time, that’s what I can promise.” He eyed the buildings as they passed, and then pointed. “There, pull in there. There’s a hardware store just up the street a bit; I can get blackout materials if I need to. I’ll get us checked in.”

Bucky pulled into the spot, and out of the car, stretching. Tony wasn’t sure where he got the clothes he was wearing, but they didn’t fit particularly well. Or maybe they fit too well. He was wearing black stretch jeans that looked like they were painted on, and a black tee with a big pink ribbon on the front. Grimy, ancient boots. And no coat. Which would probably be fine, if it wasn’t well below freezing. 

“Must be nice, not to feel the cold.” He pulled out his wallet and considered the contents. Thank god for the Euro; if he’d had to change out his cash every time they crossed a border, he’d go crazy. “Do you need money or are you going to just lurk in the shadows, _Nosferatu_ style?”

Bucky appeared to consider it, eyes searching the sidewalks for something -- Tony didn’t know what, really. There were some people out, even now, who had early jobs, or late nights, or just liked to jog. (In the winter, before dawn. Some people, Tony decided, were clearly not in their right minds.) “Money,” he said. “Lurking, also, but I always used to leave my meals with… something for their trouble.”

“Sure.” Tony pulled out a small wad of cash and handed it over. “Don’t take too long.” He hesitated, but the impulse was too strong to be worth resisting. He bounced up onto his toes to kiss Bucky’s cheek. “See you in a bit.” He grinned and turned to push into the hotel, mentally unlimbering his French.

He couldn’t see a reflection, or a shadow, or _anything_, but instead, Tony felt… the weight of Bucky’s gaze. Like Bucky was a solid thing that had taken up residence in Tony’s brain. It was weird, and once he’d discovered it was there, he couldn’t quite stop poking at it like a sore in his mouth that he’d nudge with his tongue repeatedly. He snuck a glance over his shoulder as he opened the door, but Bucky was already gone.

He made his way to the front desk and managed to remember enough vocabulary to ask for a west-facing room, if they had one. That would buy them some time, if Tony was going to need to do something about the window.

The desk clerk got him set up, after puttering around with a computer system that was quite probably as old as Bucky. Well, maybe not that old, but still. Slow. And old. He couldn’t seem to stop watching the door, curious if Bucky would swoop in dramatically, blood still on his lips. Which presented a mildly alarming worry. 

Tony didn’t mind -- or he didn’t think he minded -- that Bucky was a vampire, but sooner or later, someone else was going to notice that it was the case, and then… well, then there might be questions.

Finally, the clerk handed him over a card-key and wished him a good stay. 

Still no Bucky, and according to the clock, they had thirty six minutes to go.

Okay, well. A lot could be done in half an hour. Tony made his way up to the room. _Mild telepathy_, Bucky had said; Tony wondered if that extended to Bucky himself. He tried to focus on that strange little knot of _Bucky_ at the back of his mind and thought the room number at it.

No way to tell if it had worked, of course. He considered the curtains on the windows -- they were nice, heavy fabric with reflective white backing to keep the room dark. Tony just had to make sure they sat flush against the windows so no light could leak through around the edges. That was probably doable.

He stuffed the key in his pocket and ran back down to the car. There was a toolkit in the trunk -- there was a toolkit in the trunk of _all_ Tony’s cars. A few thin nails probably wouldn’t be noticed by the management, and a couple of rolls of electrical tape would take care of any gaps.

Tony laid the tools out on the bed, took off his jacket, and got to work. He was just checking the gaps around the top, standing on the desk chair he’d dragged over to the window for just that purpose, when something thumped, hard, followed by a squeak, in the vent next to him.

He looked over in time to watch a screw drop to the floor.

What the hell? He leaned over to peer up into the vent.

The other screw hit the floor, and then there was another thump, and the whole vent casing dropped into Tony’s hands as if he was expecting it to. A large, sleek black rat perched on the edge of the ventilation shaft, tilting its head to look at him.

“Fuck!” Tony jerked back, overbalancing the chair and crashing to the floor. “Ow, shit, fuck--” He untangled himself from the chair and looked up at the vent again.

The rat leaped onto the curtain -- which, thank Christ, did not actually tear free from where Tony had affixed it -- and onto the floor. Once there, it sat back on its haunches to observe Tony. Tony got the distinct impression that the rat was laughing at him. 

It didn’t seem the least bit scared, or rabid either, which was good.

The rat checked its surroundings, then… for lack of anything even slightly like a good word… shrugged itself into Bucky’s shape, sitting on the floor, knees pulled up to his chest. “Good spot,” he said, as if talking rats and vampires and other storybook phenomena were the everyday order of business.

“Oh my god,” Tony gasped. He flopped back onto the floor and put his hands over his face. “I don’t know whether to be relieved or pissed.”

“Sorry,” Bucky said. “I thought it best not to be seen, and it’s a little windy out there. Not good flying weather.”

“Flying.” Tony peered between his fingers. “You can turn into a bat, too, really?”

“And a wolf. Mist. Four shapes, plus my own. Which isn’t too bad. Some vampires can do half-shapes. The man-beast. Good for fighting, bad for my self-image.” 

Tony sighed and sat up again, prodding at his bruises. “You could’ve warned me,” he complained. He pointed at the window. “Think that’ll be enough?”

“It should be,” Bucky said. “I think. Nothing has a good, solid threshold around here. But I’ve been in a cave a long time. Safety is not the same thing as surety. It should be well enough.”

“Okay, well, I guess we’ll find out in about...” Tony checked the time. “Three minutes. Are you going to pass out and turn into a corpse? Anything I should do before night?”

“I am not going to pass out and turn into a corpse,” Bucky said, a flicker of a smile on his face. “I’m really not all that different from a human. Consider it more that… I have a very bad allergy to sunlight. It could be worse. I’ve known a few vampires who are sensitive even to moonlight, which is just reflected sun, you know.”

“That would suck,” Tony agreed. “But don’t try to get science-y about this. There’s nothing scientific about it, and I’m going to have a serious meltdown at some point about that.”

Bucky bent down to unlace his boots and tug them off. “Ug,” he said. “I have enough dirt on me to grow potatoes. At least I don’t sweat, which would be unpleasant for you, I expect.” Tony wasn’t the least bit body shy, or modest, but Bucky seemed to be almost genuinely unaware that stripping in front of Tony might not be entirely appropriate. Not that Tony _minded_.

The vampire’s skin was marble pale, although not flawless. He was as well formed as Michaelangelo’s statues, but his back and arms were dotted with scars; the left arm particularly looked as if it had been shattered and put back on with cheap glue, ragged lines criss-crossing just over the bicep. His right hip was decorated with a series of healed puncture wounds that might have come from a bite. The bite of a very large, angry animal.

“Jesus, what happened to you?” It was out before Tony could bite it back. “That’s not fall damage.”

“Oh, werewolf bite,” Bucky said, running his hand over the scars. “It won’t ever fade. The arm, that might get better in time, as long as I don’t go hungry again, I can heal that up. I think. I’ve never really tested the theory. It’s why the military was so interested in vampires. If they could separate the drawbacks from the benefits, make so called super-soldiers?” Bucky shook his head. “Great idea, but maybe man wasn’t meant to have unfettered power.”

A thin, whining sound filled the room, and it took Tony a moment to identify it as coming from his own throat. “Werewolves,” he said weakly. “Sure. Why not?”

He flopped onto the bed. “Don’t mind me. I’m just going to have a small existential crisis.”

Bucky winked at him, and kicked off his shorts, more grey than white really. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” he quoted. “I’m going to go wash up--” And he turned, giving Tony a long look at what might qualify as the world’s most perfect backside, with long, lean thighs and back muscles that would make a sculptor weep.

“You do that,” Tony said weakly, though he couldn’t quite drag his eyes off Bucky’s skin. “My vampire quotes Shakespeare. Okay, then.”

Bucky disappeared into the bathroom, and a few moments later, Tony heard the sound of the water running. Tony’s phone indicated that the sun had, actually, started its climb. He turned off the lights to see if there was light seepage. One edge gaped just a little, enough to send grey light into the room. Tony taped it off, and then -- trying not to listen to the vampire in the bathroom, a situation that just seemed fraught with all sorts of ramifications -- settled back onto the bed.

Bed. Singular.

Tony took a deep breath. Who knew, maybe vampires slept on the ceiling like giant bats.

He wasn’t thinking about the way Bucky had held him in the cave, warm and affectionate, the way Bucky had nuzzled at his hair and kissed him and--

He wasn’t thinking about Bucky’s utter lack of modesty or beautiful body. Or the half-remembered dream of the vampire’s teeth against his throat, or--

Groaning, Tony pulled the pillow over his head and turned his back to the rest of the room.

When Bucky came out from the bathroom, he had one towel around his hips, another draped over his shoulder to catch the water dripping from his hair. “You’d think--” he said, yawning widely, showing off his fangs “-- that having slept for the last seventy years, I wouldn’t be tired.” 

He sat down on the bed, and gravity shifted Tony into half-rolling toward him. “This is nice, an actual bed. I hadn’t seen one of them in a while, even before I fell off a mountain. Army life, you know.”

“Sure,” Tony said. “I mean, not really; I’ve never been in the army. But I can imagine, I guess.” He tried not to interpret the small motions that he could feel, minute and irregular vibrations of the mattress. “Should I... I could call the desk, see if they have a cot or something?”

“In truth, I will be more comfortable if you don’t open the door again, until nightfall,” Bucky said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think this out particularly well. It’s been a long, long time since I was trying to make arrangements for myself. SSR had, well, a coffin truck for me. Made some of the men nervous. The mortal ones. But I proved my worth, many times over.”

“I’m sure,” Tony said, and his mind was already spinning, trying to figure out how best to construct such a thing. “If you don’t pass out or whatever, wasn’t that boring?” Anything was better than thinking about Bucky’s body so close to his and _wondering_.

“Well, I do sleep,” Bucky pointed out. “The same as you, although I’m much more lethargic. I dream. I used to read, sometimes. I had a friend who used to draw little pictures and left them in my coffin for me. It really was a coffin. I about fell over laughing, first time I saw it. Someone took the legends very seriously. And then it scared me, because it is one of the ways to contain a vampire. Especially one you don’t mean to kill.” Bucky scooted around on the bed until he was facing Tony. Tony could smell the rose and spice of his breath, feel the air moving.

“Why would you... No, I’m not sure I want to know that.” Tony closed his eyes and let himself feel every hint of Bucky’s presence -- the faint warmth, the spicy scent, the soft sounds. Bucky breathed more slowly than a human. Measured.

“Come, you need sleep, too,” Bucky said. “We’ll rest during the day, move at night. I won’t… I won’t hurt you. Or feed on you, without your permission.”

“I know,” Tony said. Of all the things that were chasing each other around in his head, the thought of Bucky harming him wasn’t among them. And, well, he _was_ tired. He hadn’t slept for more than twenty-four hours, at this point, and they’d been a very busy twenty-four hours. He pulled his pillow into a somewhat more comfortable position and tried to relax.

Bucky scrunched around some more, until they were both under the blanket. “If you have to leave the room, or open the door for any reason, make sure the blanket covers me.” He put a hand on Tony’s shoulder, gave it a squeeze. “I’m sorry I’m so dependent on you.”

Tony leaned into the touch, just a little. “It’s okay.” He wasn’t sorry for it. It was nice, really, to be so trusted. “You’re not, really.” Bucky would find a way, if Tony wasn’t there to help. “It’s just nicer, this way.”

Bucky yawned again, and settled in, his hand still on Tony’s shoulder. The breathing went calmer, quieter, and then stopped altogether.

It should have been creepy, probably, but it wasn’t. Tony wriggled back, just a little. Just enough to make Bucky’s arm fall over him properly, and let himself drift downward into sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning here for the smut averse -- there be smuts here. And an additional warning, because this _is_ a vampire fic, after all: the smuts mix blood-drinking in amongst the other activities. I'm afraid we don't have neat section breaks for it this time, but if you want to try to read around it, it starts up about 1/3 of the way through the chapter, and ends at around the 2/3 mark.

There was a warm and sweet smelling thing pressed up against Bucky during the day, cuddly and content, and Bucky didn’t see any harm in pulling it closer. He’d been cold and torpid for so long, immobile and starving, conserving what little strength he had just to keep existing, day to day, night to night, in a perpetual haze. He’d barely had strength enough to be afraid, and he'd learned fear in all its fine, silvery faces.

_The fall…_

“_Steve--”_

_He was barely holding on, the train nothing but a metal blur, the sky black and starless above them. _

_A night mission to stop Zola, and--_

_The silver-light guns. Too many, and Bucky was burning through the blood in his system keeping barely ahead, dodging, and then--_

_The side of the train tore away and he was falling._

_He grabbed wildly, caught the rail._

_Fly, he could--_

_There wasn’t enough blood in him, he was as mortal as he could get. He couldn’t change. He couldn’t shift._

_The ground was impossibly far away, and Steve, his friend, was reaching for him. Bucky stretched--_

_The metal strut gave way, and the last thing he saw for a long time was Steve’s face, pale and screaming, above him, rapidly disappearing in the distance._

_He struck the ground, a deep snowbank, burying him thick in ice and snow. There was agony, and the last of his precious blood seeped away._

_Bucky groped in the darkness, found the missing limb and willed it back into place. He couldn’t lose any more blood; he reached out with his senses and called a few small animals to him, but it wasn’t enough._

_Barely enough to attach the arm._

_Sunrise was--_

_He turned, his eyes widening with fear, with knowledge. The thumbnail edge of the sun was on the horizon, and it burned--_

Somewhere, miles from that ice and cave and fear, Bucky woke to find Tony struggling in his arms, warm -- too warm, really, kicking at the blankets and whimpering.

“Tony--” Bucky drew back, not sure what the problem was. “Wake, darling. The sun’s gone down, my dear. I’m safe. We’re safe here.”

Tony woke with a gasp, staring around with wide, unseeing eyes. “Bucky?” He was panting, breath hot and tainted with terror.

“Tony, Tony, darling, shhh,” Bucky soothed, running one hand over the sweat-damp hair. “It’s all right. Nothing’s going to hurt you. You’re safe, you’re well. I’m here.”

Tony was stiff for another moment, and then he relaxed all at once, collapsing against Bucky’s chest, clutching at Bucky’s arm. “_Christ_, that was...” He shuddered all over.

“What was it?” Bucky asked, aware, entirely too aware, that he was holding Tony close, the sweet smell of Tony’s throat a siren’s call in Bucky’s ear, the lithe, warm body an entirely different sort of temptation. He moved his face away, but it didn’t seem to matter; Tony’s scent saturated the air around them.

“You,” Tony breathed. “Falling. Burning.”

“You dreamed my dream,” Bucky said. “I was thinking of it, and it carried over as I slept. I’m sorry. But truly, I’m safe here, and so are you. It’s over. Just a memory.” Bucky kissed Tony’s hair, practically tasting the man’s scent. The blood in his system surged and heated, and-- oh, well… that was unexpected. He shifted as every bit of skin became entirely too aware of Tony. That… that was awkward, and moving didn’t seem to make it any easier, or let those particular desires calm, either.

For a moment, Bucky couldn’t decide if he wanted to feed, or if he wanted to fuck. Basic, innate desires that any creature craved. Safety, food, shelter, love.

_I’m still on the edge of being human_, Bucky thought, his fingers tightening, hand in Tony’s hair almost clenching down.

It wasn’t made any easier by the fact that, even though Tony was calming down, he was still clinging tightly to Bucky. Pressing even _closer_, as if that were actually possible. And Tony’s body seemed to know _exactly_ what to do with the leftover energy the dream had caused.

“Tony, I--” Bucky started to speak and Tony tipped his chin up, those huge eyes wet and beautiful and the lashes were thick, somehow delicate. Full of longing, the sort of hunger that Bucky knew well, and something else. “I wish, darling, that it was still the older days, when I had everything I needed. I would love to lavish on you all the gifts at my command, dress you in fine silks, and bring you little delicacies from all over the world. I would very much like--” _to see you in nothing at all, to lay you down in my bed, to practice the arts of love on your body_ “--to treat you as you very much deserve. But right now… I promised I would take nothing more from you, without your consent.”

“You have it,” Tony said. “Take... take whatever you need, whatever you want.” He laughed, somewhat shakily. “I don’t need gifts. Silk and delicacies and all that stuff, I’ve _got_ all that, already. I just want you.”

"You have me," Bucky said, and that was true. Even if it was only the blood bond, a fondness that grew with a vampire's chosen vessel to make feeding easier, Bucky _was_ fond… he wanted Tony and for more than just a meal. He was more than just convenient, more than a simple thrall. He wanted to warn Tony. To tell him that Bucky wasn't worth… well anything, really. He was a parasite, a predator.

_Playing with your food_, his sire would have said.

But Tony made a soft, aching, wanting sound and Bucky was lost to caution, lost to prudence. He let his hunger have its head. 

Kissing Tony was almost as good as feeding from him.

Tony responded so _beautifully_, a quiet, needy sound welling up out of his throat as his mouth opened under Bucky’s. His arms wrapped around Bucky’s shoulders, fingers twining in Bucky’s hair. The instant Bucky started to withdraw, Tony pressed forward, rolling their bodies together, slipping his own tongue past Bucky’s lips, scraping along the edge of Bucky’s fangs.

He could feel the blood rushing through Tony's veins, lush and wet and maddening. "Tony," Bucky groaned the name, lips pressing against Tony's mouth, his cheek, along his jaw, and to that soft, ripe area just under his throat. He didn't bite, not yet, but he licked at the spot. Felt the faded scar of where he'd bitten down before. Tiny little marks, barely noticeable, they'd fade in mere days, and they tasted of new skin.

“Yes, yes, yes,” Tony begged. He tipped his head back even further, his hand on Bucky’s head pressing gently, an echo of his words. _Yes, yes, yes._

He remembered this part, this pleasure, the pleasure that was sometimes greater, even, than drinking blood. Bucky ran a hand down Tony’s body, discovered that at some point during the day, when Bucky was asleep and unaware, Tony had peeled out of his clothes, getting comfortable. Nice. His hand went down further, touching Tony’s chest, his belly, feeling the muscles jump and twitch in response. Down further, and Tony was wearing drawers, as soft as a lady’s, slick and cool to the touch.

“Yes, oh, darling,” Bucky said, and cupped him through that perfect, silky fabric. The frictionless glide of his hand, rubbing the heel against Tony’s groin.

Tony’s breath caught and stuttered and he pushed into the touch, groaning with the need for friction. “Yes, yes, _please_...” His hands slid over Bucky’s skin, aimless and frantic. “Touch me, bite me, anything--” He traced the curve of Bucky’s hip, smoothed over Bucky’s stomach, and then paused. “Do you--?”

“Pretty sure,” Bucky said, murmuring into the crook of Tony’s neck, “that the answer to whatever you’re about to ask is yes.” He slid lower, licking at Tony’s skin, tasting the salt and spice of his sweat, the very Tony-ness of him. “Whatever you like, whatever I can give you.” His hand dipped inside Tony’s drawers at that wordless invitation. He could, in fact, bite Tony, take his blood, during the act of love. 

It was… a great intimacy. 

Tony’s hand moved lower, clever warm fingers stroking Bucky’s cock, testing its responses. Tony shivered and moaned at Bucky’s touch, but his busy, restless hands never stopped moving. “Want you,” he panted. “Bucky...”

“My darling,” Bucky said. He rutted, thrusting at Tony’s hand, aching in a way he hadn’t, longer even than the great sleep. He wanted, needed, burned for Tony. “Easy, my love, just--” He couldn’t resist that siren’s call any longer; Tony’s heart pounded like a drum, a chant, begging, and the taste of Tony’s skin was too luscious. “Just, don’t move a moment.”

He slithered down, between Tony’s legs, spread those pale thighs. The vein there was thick, fat and sweet. Bucky cupped his hand around Tony’s cock, sliding up through the leg hole of his drawers to get a good grip, thumbed over the head, smearing fluid around.

And bit down on the expanse of thigh, sharp teeth seeking the vein, tongue already anticipating the flow, mouth aching for the taste of it.

Heart’s blood, strong and fresh and filled with the spice of Tony’s wanting. _Don’t move, love, don’t move._

He didn’t dare take much, a sip, two… three gulps, and then he sent his thoughts to the healing chemicals in his saliva, to close the holes before Tony bled out, before Bucky did any irreparable damage.

“Oh, _god_,” Tony gasped, and his hands were unsteady when they combed through Bucky’s hair. “God, that’s intense. Bucky... I want you, so much, I need--” He broke off with half a sob, writhing under Bucky’s hand.

Bucky licked the wounds until they closed, flicked his tongue over every precious droplet spilled.

Everything in him was light, everything was sensation and feeling, linked to Tony twice, no three times over, hearing, feeling his emotions as if they were Bucky’s own. He could touch Tony exactly as he wished to be touched, know him, and his responses, as well as Bucky knew his own. He moved over the man, eager and frantic, until he was resting on Tony’s chest, cradled between his thighs, mouth seeking Tony’s lips with needy, urgent kisses. He could tell, the instant Tony tasted the faint remnants of his blood in Bucky’s mouth. 

They bonded, again, Bucky’s emotions, feelings rushing out of him, into Tony, redoubled. 

He was gasping for air he didn’t need, straining to reach some goal he couldn’t quite see. 

Impatiently, he ripped through the silk fabric of Tony’s shorts, threw the material aside, and rubbed them together, one hand cupping both their lengths, squeezing and rutting them together.

Almost too much, the delicious friction, almost too perfect, feeling every touch amplified by the blood-sharing.

Bucky rolled his hips against Tony’s. “Here, love,” he said, and let go of them for a moment to raise a sharp claw to his throat. “Here, drink.” A bare scratch and two or three drops of blood beaded to the surface. He turned his chin, guided Tony to the spot.

Tony licked cautiously at first, and then closed his mouth over Bucky’s skin and sucked, hard enough to bruise. Tongue busy, he moaned, and Bucky felt the bond between them expanding further yet, until Tony was a bright spark at the center of Bucky’s being, powerful and precious.

If Bucky could have prayed, he might have. The pleasure was so great it was almost pain, so brilliant it almost burned him. He rubbed his cock against Tony’s, that heated, velvet skin, mindlessly rutting like a beast, seeking release. “There you are, darling,” Bucky murmured, sure and certain. “I see you.”

And he did. He saw everything that was Tony, the lust for life the man had, his brilliant mind, his generous heart, the great gaping hole that no adrenalin rush could give him, the approval he craved, and the utter conviction that he would never be _enough_. “You are, darling, you are so sublime, so brilliant and perfect. Tony!”

Lovemaking, his sire had said, was a waste of blood.

But Bucky had never, ever felt anything so perfect, so crystalline and transcendent, as he did in that moment. He cried Tony’s name, would have wept if he’d been able. 

“Bucky, oh, oh god, I--” Tony came with a cry, body arching and shaking. The heat and pleasure of it washed through them both, whiting out all thought for several long, glorious moments.

When Tony felt back to the bed, he was limp, utterly sated. He petted Bucky’s skin and hair clumsily, echoes of sensation still reverberating between them.

“You’re very beautiful,” Bucky told him, leaning up on one elbow to brush hair out of Tony’s face with a tender hand.

“So are you,” Tony returned. He lifted his head to claim a kiss, sweet and gentle.

“I’m afraid that while snuggling in bed sounds very appealing right now,” Bucky said, and he cuddled closer, giving his very best impression of a rock, “night time’s wasting, and we should probably get going.”

Tony grumbled. “You’ve been asleep for seventy years; what’s one more night?” But he nuzzled at Bucky’s cheek and then pushed himself upright.

Bucky rolled over to stare up at the ceiling. Tony wasn’t exactly wrong. Except, “This isn’t an ideal situation for long-term residence. Too many things could go wrong.” A housekeeper opening the door at the wrong time, the coverings over the window falling. If anyone noticed the girl he’d drunk from last night, the bruise on her throat, the weakness in her today. 

Sometimes the most innocuous things roused suspicion, and Bucky was in no good place to fight a Hunter, if one came for him. 

“Yeah, all right,” Tony said. “I got time for a shower before we hit the road?”

“Yes,” Bucky decided. “And time for food for you. I won’t need any more tonight, unless we mean to be fighting for an extended time. Is there a place--” Bucky held up the clothes from the night before that he’d stolen. “-- where we might be able to replace these?”

“Oh, sure,” Tony said. “It’s night, but it’s not _that_ late; I’m sure we can find someplace that’s open and buy stuff.” He picked up his shredded underwear and dropped them into the trash bin, then made his way into the bathroom, hips swaying provocatively.

For a long moment, Bucky considered the idea of chasing Tony into the shower and taking care of him before _taking care_ of him. But he wasn’t wrong; there were too many variables here, and Bucky had no current reports. He could rest easier when he knew the state of the world, particularly, the shadowy underside of it, where the Great Game was played, where lives and territories and childer were the stakes, and where any mistake could mean losing everything.

Bucky had lost a lot in his fall; it was time to count his chips and see where, if anywhere, was safe for him.

The shower splashed for a while, and then Tony emerged, wrapped in a towel, rivulets of water still running down his shoulders and back. “How urgent is your shopping?” he asked as he pulled his jeans on. “It might be easier to wait until we’re in England.”

“Not terribly, if you’re not bothered by the smell,” Bucky said. He righted the shirt -- the fabric was thin and softer than any shirt he’d ever worn before, and the color was cheerful. The pants, very snug, but it wasn’t like he had circulation that could get cut off, these days. He utterly declined to put his drawers back on, ancient and discolored as they were. He’d grown up as a poverty-stricken, second generation immigrant. He didn’t relish wearing things too old for the rag bag. 

“I think you smell nice,” Tony said, flashing him a smile and then pulling his own shirt on. “Come on, then. We’ll gas up the car and grab something greasy to eat on the road and coffee to wash it down with.”

“You’re an unusual mortal,” Bucky decided as they got into the car. He let Tony drive, at least for a while. “Most people find me… oddly disturbing in a way they can’t quite put their finger on, even if they don’t know what I am. I haven’t met many who wanted me to be around, for more than what I can give them.”

“Their loss,” Tony said cheerfully. “But yes, pretty much anyone will tell you I’m... well, ‘unusual’ is probably the nicest way they’d say it.” He pulled into the filling station, then jogged across the street to a bakery. He came back with a bag full of pastries and a paper cup that smelled of coffee. By the time they were properly on the road again, he’d already eaten three of them, and the car’s interior smelled like sugar and butter and coffee.

For a mortal, Tony’s reflexes were superb; once free of the confines of in-town traffic, he tore along the motorways like a daredevil.

Bucky didn’t need mortal food, not to live, and it seemed wasteful to actually eat the sugary thing, since it didn’t do anything but taste good, but Tony laughed at him when he expressed an interest in the snack, and watched him eat it -- trying not to bite his tongue, because his stupid fangs kept dropping as he chewed. “Comes of a liquid diet for so many years,” Bucky complained. “I’m sure this is not at all nutritious.”

“It’s French,” Tony said reasonably. “It’s like ninety percent butter, probably. And yet, the French have a lower rate of heart attacks than a significant number of other developed countries. The last theory I heard was that it’s the wine.”

“That would be a waste for me to drink at all,” Bucky said. “If I want the effects of alcohol, I have to get _you _drunk, and then take from you.”

“Seems inefficient,” Tony commented, whipping around a slow-moving delivery truck. “But I’m game, if you ever feel the need to cut loose a bit.”

“Someday, perhaps,” Bucky said. He tried not to think about that, a someday. He’d learned, even as an immortal, undying, unaging, that his future was never assured. And-- he glanced at Tony -- mortals were even less permanent. He dared not plan, dared not let himself hope. “But it’s nonetheless true. I can eat, and drink, as if I were mortal, but I’m not one. But feel free to have another pastry. You don’t have to worry about heart disease, so long as you travel at my side. Or any sort of disease, really.”

“Well, that’s handy,” Tony said, blithely unconcerned. “I don’t know how much _at your side_ I can do -- I have to at least occasionally do some work, just to keep the stockholders happy -- but you’re welcome to visit anytime you like.”

_One day, _Bucky thought. _Some day, I shall make myself a childe. Someone I can stay with. Love._

Which was not, he had to admit, what his sire had been after when Bucky had been made. No kindness, that, but greed. A soldier in an army of death, and it had only been pure luck that allowed Bucky even the chance to rebel.

Well, perhaps he should make sure any childe of his would be safe, before he went about planning one.


	5. Chapter 5

As they approached the border control station, Tony leaned over to press his thumb to the locked compartment next to the glovebox and pull out his passport. “Crap, you... do not have a valid passport.” He made a face. “I guess you could be a rat or something until we clear customs. Hide under the seat.”

Bucky only smiled. “It’ll be fine, just drive.” He didn’t look particularly concerned. Of course he didn’t. Bucky hadn’t lived through 9-11, the gradual increase of global security, security theater, people locked up and forgotten about-- “It’s fine, don’t worry.” And there it went again, that soothing sensation. That Tony should be a lot more worried about something than he was. Vampires were dangerous. And Tony was not afraid. 

“Okay,” Tony said. “If they wind up detaining us until sunrise, just remember it’s not my fault.”

There was always traffic for the Chunnel, but this late at night (or was that early in the morning?) there wasn’t much. Tony parked in the directed spot and rolled down the window for the border agent. He handed over his passport. “I’ve been visiting my aunt,” he said cheerfully. “Took a few days to go skiing, but now I’m headed back.”

The agent flipped his passport open, looked at it. Handed it back. “And the other gentleman?”

Bucky leaned forward a little. “Sergeant James Barnes,” he said, mimicking handing something across Tony to the agent. “Returning to base.”

“Very good, sir, Mr. Stark. Have a pleasant journey.” The border agent handed Tony’s passport back and waved them on.

Well, it wasn’t quite _these aren’t the droids you’re looking for_, but it was damned close.

“Huh. I wonder if George Lucas is secretly a vampire. It would explain _so much_. That’s a handy trick.”

“It’s useful, in situations where I’m not actively being Hunted,” Bucky said. “They see what they expect to see. I tell them what they expect to hear. It doesn’t work as well if someone’s looking for me, or expecting trouble. It’s a… sort of mental static, I guess. If someone asks, later, she won’t even remember us.”

“Handy,” Tony repeated.

The trip through the Chunnel was quiet. They didn’t bother to get out of the car to explore the train; Tony spent most of it giving Bucky a thirty-thousand foot overview of the last seventy years’ worth of history. What he could recall of it, anyway.

“I don’t like it,” Bucky said, at one point. “You killed Hitler, great. But what happened to Schmidt? To Zola? They had an army, and they weren’t Nazi patriots anymore, they had their own agenda.”

“I don’t know,” Tony admitted. “Maybe Aunt Peggy does. If she remembers.”

“They couldn’t reproduce Howard’s research, something he did, working with Erskine. Only worked once, that I know of,” Bucky said, gazing, misty-eyed, over Tony’s shoulder. Like he was seeing something far away. “Then Erskine got himself killed. But Zola… he was the real mastermind. They didn’t get what they wanted. They got something much, _much _worse.”

“Oh? What’s that?” Tony glanced over at Bucky, who was staring at something far away.

“I don’t really know what to call them. They’re not like me, but they are… bastard step-children, of sorts. Strong, fast. The only mercy is they can’t… breed. Not directly. Not like I could, well, like I can. If I chose to. They’re just murderers. They drink until they’re glutted with it. They don’t leave their victims alive. Savage. Hard to kill.” Bucky took a deep breath. “I don’t know if they’re still out there. Somewhere.”

Tony considered it. “I think that sort of thing would be pretty hard to keep hidden, for this long,” he offered.

Bucky’s gaze focused on him. “The United States military had a special forces unit, called the Howling Commandos. Our members included me, a werewolf, and an Atlantian. And you never heard of us until you found me in my cave.”

“Sure, okay, but you were operatives. Not mindless ravening monsters set loose on the countryside or something.” Tony shrugged. “It keeps coming back to Aunt Peggy.”

“Hard to think of her being someone’s auntie, even yours, love,” Bucky said. “The woman I knew; well, she got tired of doors being slammed in her face, started kickin’ ‘em in. She went after what she wanted, ignored everyone who told her she couldn’t, took down everyone who tried to stop her. You wouldn’t catch me standing between Margaret Carter and anything she wanted, and I’m nearly immortal.”

Tony grinned. “Yeah, that sounds like my Aunt Peggy,” he agreed. “Some of my favorite childhood memories are her visiting and tearing my dad a new one over some bullshit he was trying to get past her. She was about the only one who was ever willing to stand up to him.”

“I’m glad she was there for you,” Bucky said. “Glad she didn’t get killed in that stupid war. We should bring her smoked oysters, she used to love them.” Bucky shot a glance at Tony, full of some question that he wasn’t ready to ask, or that he didn’t want to know the answers to. “Little things, you know. Delicacies.” 

“Oh god, please tell me you and Aunt Peggy never...” Tony waved a hand awkwardly.

Bucky’s mouth twitched upward. “Are you worried that we shared blood, or… other things?” He snorted. “She wasn’t my best gal. She had her eyes on someone else. When he was around, it was like I was invisible. She did drink my blood once. She’d been shot in the gut, we were pinned down. Didn’t seem right to let her die right there. We dug the bullet out, she took a sip of my blood to close the wound. And then she walked right across the battlefield to feed it to the man who’d shot her. He died. Seemed justified, somehow.”

Tony considered that. “Yeah, okay, that makes sense, I can live with that.” Did that make him Bucky’s _best guy_, he wondered? Or just a convenient blood bag and fucktoy rolled into one? Probably best not to ask. They’d only known each other for a couple of days, after all.

“You think Aunt Peg’ll be willing to put you up for the day, or should we find a hotel and wait to drop in until evening?”

“You said she’s… ailing,” Bucky replied. “I want… I’d like to see her as soon as possible. If she doesn’t have a place for me, I can sleep in the trunk of a car, if I have to.” His jaw tightened a little. 

Tony nodded. “Okay. Let me go first, see where her mind is. She’s not always... in the present.”

“Well, neither am I, some days,” Bucky said. “But yes, let’s not make her unhappy.” 

Another hour on the road, once they were off the Chunnel, and Bucky was eyeing the sky with the attitude of a man who was running late to a meeting. “It’s probably fine,” he said. “Been gone so long, and… everything feels urgent that was settled decades ago.”

“We’re almost there,” Tony promised. He glanced over at Bucky and grinned a little. “You think she’ll be happy to see you, or is she going to kick both our asses?”

“Depends if she’s mad at me for screwing up her op by dying unexpectedly,” Bucky said. “I have to assume it went south. Or they just couldn’t find me. I don’t know, maybe they thought the sun got me. Not unreasonable, I suppose.”

“Well, I guess we’re about to find out.” Tony turned onto the lane. “Lucky for us, she’s an early riser, so she won’t be too mad about us rousting her before dawn.”

Bucky stared up at the house; estate, really. 

Aunt Peggy had done well for herself with investments, and of course Howard advising her on money matters. It was a nice place. Well situated, whatever that meant. And secure. Tony had the gate’s code, as long as they hadn’t changed it in the last six months or so. If she had, Tony would have to go through the routine of having her butler buzz him in. 

But the code got him in, and they pulled up into the drive.

Bucky looked up into the sky as they got out of the car, the sky was already starting to grey, just a little. Wistful, then, “Come on, let’s go see Aunt Peggy.”

Tony led the way up to the steps and rang the bell. He waited a few seconds, and then rang it again, two short and one long press. When he’d been younger, it had never occurred to him to wonder why his Aunt Peggy had needed a code for the doorbell that meant _urgent/emergency_.

“Come in, Mr. Stark,” the butler said, opening the door. “It’s quite early for you. Burning the midnight oil again. I alerted her that you were on your way up. She’s in the library.” The butler glanced at Bucky, then back at Tony. “Your friend is, as they say, on the up and up?”

Bucky gave the butler a quick smile, then-- “Oh. I see. Very clever.” He pointed to the mirror across the hall. “Good to see she’s kept up with things.”

“He’s fine,” Tony assured the butler. “He and my aunt go way back, apparently.” He didn’t have a coat to hand over, so he just smiled. “I know the way, if you like.”

“As you say,” the butler said. 

Bucky tipped his head at the man and followed Tony down the hall. “Your auntie’s taking precautions,” he said. “UV spots there, and there. Silver on the door handle. Mirrors. And that’s just what I can see from here. Lead the way, my love.”

“Well, you can’t count on _all_ your supernatural visitors being friendly,” Tony said lightly, though it was a little disturbing to think of how often he’d visited -- played as a boy in these halls, chasing radio-controlled cars and clumsy robots through all the rooms -- and never even noticed all the protections.

He knocked lightly on the library door and opened it just enough to stick his head through. “Aunt Peggy?”

“Come in, ducky,” Aunt Peggy said. “Just you. Your friend is not invited in.”

Bucky stopped on a dime, as if he’d run into an invisible forcefield. “Clever girl,” he said. “Threshold.” 

Tony gave Bucky an encouraging little smile. “Be just a sec,” he promised, and slipped in. “Auntie,” he greeted her, bending to kiss her cheek. “How are you today?”

“As well as I can be,” she said. She was wearing a thin dressing gown over a cotton night rail, her hair steel grey and hanging in curls. Always so proud of her hair, Aunt Peggy was. “I take so many different pills these days, and doctor’s always fussing. Must watch my cholesterol, whatever that is. Question is, are _you _all right? Let me see your neck, child.”

Tony sighed and let her tug at the collar of his shirt. “I’m _fine_, auntie,” he promised. “He’s a friend of yours, he says.”

“I don’t have friends that are Revenants,” Peggy said. “He’s bitten you, all right. Did a neat job of it, too. Not the usual. You’re not hurt, so he must want something. Here.” and she pushed -- Jesus, was that a wooden stake? -- into his hand.

“Oh my god,” Tony groaned. “Seriously?” He held up his hands at the stern look she gave him. “Okay, okay. Tell me what you know about the Howling Commandos, then.”

Peggy blinked. “They’re all dead,” she said. “Every single one of them. I know Howard didn’t tell you, Howard was drinking to forget practically since he got back on American soil. Made a right mess of it, too, poor bastard. Sorry to speak ill of the dead, Tony, but-- Well, Howard felt guilty. He shouldn’t have; we did the best we could.”

“No, of course Dad didn’t tell me anything,” Tony said. “_He_ did.” He waved toward the door that separated the library from the hall. “Though I guess technically speaking, you’re right; vampires are definitely dead.”

“Vampires are very different from Revenants, child,” Peggy said. “And I believe they’re mostly extinct. The last one I knew of fell from a train in Switzerland, long before you were even a twinkle in Howard’s eye.”

“What luck that I happened to be vacationing in Switzerland, then,” Tony said. “Come on, at least come to the door and have a look at Bucky before you decide to have Jeeves stake him or something.”

“_Bucky_?” Peggy asked, her voice suddenly shaking. “What-- how did you know-- no one called him that, not officially--” She didn’t scramble to her feet, she was long past any days of scrambling, but she did get up rather hastily. 

“Should’ve led with that, I guess,” Tony said, letting her lean on his arm. He brought her to the library door and opened it again to reveal Bucky waiting in the hall.

If he’d had his ear pressed to the door a moment ago, he now looked the very picture of patience.

“Sergeant Barnes,” Peggy said, crisply.

“Yes, ma’am,” Bucky said, straightening. “Reporting for duty, ma’am. Somewhat behind schedule, I’ll admit.”

“You’re a terrible hooligan, James Barnes,” Peggy snapped. “What the devil are you doing in Surrey? What happened-- nevermind, come inside, come inside, it’s almost dawn, you idiot.”

“I’m aware.”

“There’s no windows in my library, come inside this instant,” Peggy demanded, and then she gasped, her hand going to her chest, the other groping around as if to find the doorframe.

“Auntie!” Tony put his arm around her waist to hold her up. She barely weighed anything. “Too much excitement. Come on, auntie, slow breaths -- should I ring for your meds?”

“Pegs?” Bucky was there, staring at her. “Peggy… Agent Carter!”

“It’s all right, dear boy,” Peggy said, patting Bucky’s cheek. “Third shelf, blue cover.”

“No,” Bucky said, “no, no, Carter, not-- don’t die on me, please.”

“All mortals die, James,” she slurred, and then slumped in Tony’s grasp.

“Shit!” Tony scooped her up and carried her to the ridiculous-looking sofa at the back of the room. “What do we do?” He laid her down, very gently, and then spun around, wildly staring, as if instructions might just appear in thin air. “What did she-- third shelf, blue cover? What’s that?” He scanned the bookshelves. There were dozens of books with blue covers; it was a _library_. “Auntie, don’t. Don’t go, not yet,” he begged.

“Carter, damnit,” Bucky said. “No, no, you stay.”

“Make me,” Peggy said, and she took a shuddering breath.

“Damn it, don’t you--” Bucky raised one hand to his own throat. “Tony, hold her up for me. Carter, don’t you dare--” One nail raked across his skin, and a soft trickle of blood came out. “Don’t die, Pegs, it would be really, _really _bad for you to die right now. Just drink.”

Tony whispered in her ear, “Come on, Aunt Peggy, you’ve done this before, right? It’s not your time, yet, you know it isn’t. We just-- it was the shock, or you’d be just fine. Just a little sip, auntie, please, for me?”

“James, you bloody rude vampire, don’t--” Bucky cupped the back of Peggy’s neck and the rest of her words were cut off. She stopped resisting his pull and her hands went with unusual strength to Bucky’s shoulders.

There was a soft sound, like biting a peach, and Bucky winced, his eyelids fluttered, and he clutched her to him. “There’s my girl, you’re gonna be fine, kid. Promise. I’ve got you.”

Tony watched, wide-eyed, feeling tremulous. It didn’t look like it felt, he thought -- but Bucky’s soft encouragement for Peggy wasn’t anything like the things he said to Tony, either. Maybe it was just different.

It seemed to go on longer, too. Was Peggy so badly off? Or was it just a perception thing? He wasn’t sure if he wanted to know. “Aunt Peggy?”

Bucky’s eyes opened wide, his hand on Peggy’s neck shifted and-- “Pegs, Peggy,” and he pushed her back. “Agent Carter, snap out of it.”

Peggy sat back, and her hair, her silvery grey hair that kept its soft curl was as brown as mahogany, shining against her bathrobe. “James… James what did you do to me?” Her voice wasn’t shaking, or infirm, or crackling with age. She held out a hand, unwrinkled, unblemished. The bruisingly visible veins were gone, the swollen knuckles back to thin, strong, elegant fingers. “James?”

“You didn’t die,” Bucky pointed out. “You’re not a vampire, it’s okay, look, look at yourself in the mirror, you’re--”

“_Young_,” Peggy said.

“Oops?” Bucky suggested, tentatively.

Peggy was staring at herself in the mirror in utter dismay, and Bucky was looking sheepish. Both of which were ridiculous; it was a _miracle_. “Wow, Aunt Peggy,” Tony drawled, “you really were a looker back in the day, huh?”

“What did you do to me?”

Bucky touched a single curl, let it loop around his finger. “Panicked? I don’t know, it’s never happened before. Of course, I don’t know that anyone’s ever-- Carter, look, Tony just woke me up, literally two nights ago, I couldn’t let you _just die_.”

“That is what people _do_, James,” Peggy said, smacking his hand away from her like he was a misbehaving child. “They fight for a good cause, and they watch everyone around them get ripped away, and… _and then they die_, damn you.” 

“Well, not today,” Bucky said. “And based on how much you took, best not for at least a month. Maybe three.”

“Oh, I hate you, and if Steve were here, he’d kick your ass,” Peggy said.

Bucky froze. “Where is Steve?”

Peggy raised her chin, eyes wet. “He died. About a month after you did-- bloody idiot. Never did show up for our date. Just like both of you, to leave me behind.”

Tony felt like he was watching a tennis match, back and forth, back and forth. “Who’s Steve?”

"Project Rebirth," Bucky said. "Steve Rogers. The only successful experiment."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Inaccuracies regarding the Chunnel can be laid squarely on the fact that we're both Americans who've never been to Europe (yet)... Just roll with it. ;)


	6. Chapter 6

If Bucky had time enough and patience, he could have made a list of all the things he hated about being a vampire.

There were certainly enough of them to occupy many pages. 

He hated being confined to the night -- even twilight was out, since a badly timed reflection could burn him. It was inconvenient and annoying, and often lonely. Humans, by and large, tended to be daytime creatures, even if it was nothing more than habit. Or some leftover prey instinct that kept them indoors and behind a threshold. 

The whole not having a reflection thing was problematic; he hadn’t seen himself in decades. Sometimes, Steve would draw him, since Bucky’s image couldn’t even be captured by a photograph. Bucky had very little idea what he looked like, since he was pretty sure that his residual self-image was of him as a teenager.

But, and this particularly bothered him, especially when he needed it; he couldn’t cry. Among other things, his body just didn’t produce the sorts of fluids needed for tears. 

He wanted to cry, he needed that relief.

How could _Steve _be gone?

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Bucky gasped. “Peggy, I’m so sorry.” He wanted to scream, shriek in rage and grief. He was aching with it, full up to the top, and there was no way to let it out. It was just stuck inside, burning and hateful.

Tony reached out for Bucky’s hand, squeezing it tight, still strong with Bucky’s blood but not nearly strong enough to harm Bucky. But the pressure, the slight ache, was grounding, a little. “You loved him,” he said softly, not quite a question.

“Yeah,” Bucky said, because it was true. It had been impossible _not _to love Steve. “He… he was the best man I ever met. A good man, strong-willed an’... brave, and true, and everything that people say that a man should be, an’ you never really meet anyone like that. Stubborn as hell, too. Chip on his shoulder the size of Miami. Stupid, sometimes.”

“Never knew what to say to women,” Peggy added in. “Two left feet, and suffered intensely from foot-in-mouth disease, too. Impolitic, rude, and completely unmanageable. But he had a way about him. Of making you want to be better, just by standing in the room with him. He was a great leader.”

“I’m sure we’d have gotten on like a house afire,” Tony said. “Was he... human?”

“Yes,” Bucky said, at the very same time that Peggy said, “No.” Bucky’s chin snapped up and he stared at Peggy. “He _was--_” Bucky insisted.

“He was not,” Peggy said. “Dr. Erskine and Howard… did something to him. The soul, Steve’s soul, didn’t change, but his body did. Whatever he was, some sort of vampire-human hybrid. It wasn’t human. He wasn’t human anymore. He was something else.”

Tony didn’t let go of Bucky’s hand, but he was staring at Peggy, wide-eyed. “And he went down in the Arctic? Are you...” He glanced at Bucky, licked his lips. “Are you _sure_ he died?”

“Not half so certain as I was yesterday,” Peggy admitted. “Could he have… gone into hibernation, the way you seem to have?”

“I don’t know, Peggy,” Bucky said. “Do I look like a vampire expert to you?”

“You are a vampire,” she shot back.

“Are you a human expert, or do you just work here?” Bucky threw his hands up. “I don’t know, Peggy. Whatever he was, it wasn’t anything that’s ever been seen before. I’m not a scientist, or a doctor. I don’t-- they were keeping all sorts of paperwork on him, medical files and blood samples.”

“Howard had them,” Peggy said, raising an eyebrow at Tony. “He was obsessed with repeating the experiment, but we lost you, we lost Steve, we… didn’t have much to work with.”

Tony looked thoughtful. “I think I know where Dad might have hidden his files,” he said slowly. “At least, I think I know where to start looking. I haven’t been back to the house since they died.”

Bucky chewed his lip. “Let’s not get our hopes up, Pegs,” he said, slowly. “If anyone could-- I mean, if he’s even still alive, finding him is going to be incredibly difficult. You must have looked for him.”

“As far as I know, Howard never stopped looking,” Peggy said. She put her hand on Bucky’s wrist, her fingers strong. “We didn’t know you were alive. The fall, and sunrise-- it was assumed, and we had so many other things-- Schmidt figured out a way to produce the Red Plague. He armed an aircraft with it, sent it to bomb New York. Steve put the plane down, rather than let it-- drat him, he could have given us something to work with. Coordinates, anything.” She gave him a watery smile. “I… well, darling, we thought he might have… chosen not to fight. You were gone, he--”

“Don’t you even finish that sentence,” Bucky snarled, knowing his fangs were descending and being utterly unable to help it. Steve did not, would not, commit suicide. That was absurd.

“Well, Dad’s notes might not have anything useful in them,” Tony said, patting Bucky’s hand, petting his fingers soothingly. “But it’s worth a look, don’t you think?”

Bucky took a deep breath. He didn’t need it, but held it anyway. His lungs couldn’t burn, oxygen wouldn’t clear his head. It didn’t even steady him. Exasperated, he blew it out. There really needed to be a better vampire equivalent. And then he looked back at Peggy, young and healthy and ready to jump right back into it. “Yes, we should… at least look for him.” It wasn’t like he’d made other plans. “I don’t suppose you still have access to the _Night Witch_.”

“Howard was one of the best civilian pilots in history,” Peggy said. “We were lucky to have him. That said, the _Witch_ is long gone. But give Tony a mechanic’s bay and a few days, we can christen a new one.”

Tony’s brows drew together, his eyes suddenly focused miles away -- or deep within. “It’s an interesting problem,” he murmured. “Obviously, you have to seal off the cockpit entirely, but small craft don’t really have...” He seemed to shake himself awake, and he grinned at Bucky. “Yeah, I can do it. And fly it, too.”

Bucky experienced such a rush of relief, affection, and admiration that he was dizzy with it. What a gift Howard had given him, even without meaning to. “Ain’t you somethin’ else, Tony Stark?”

Tony grinned. “I am all that, and a bag of chips,” he agreed, slightly smug. He tipped his head at Peggy. “So who do you know who’d be willing to sell your rich, eccentric, and bored godson a smallish plane? But not _too_ small; we need to be capable of transatlantic flight, here. I could raid the SI hangar, but then I’d have to come up with some kind of excuse for Obie, and I’m guessing he doesn’t know any more about the Howling Commandos than I did, two days ago.”

“I have some favors I could call in,” Peggy said, thoughtfully. “Come, let me show you where you can stay for a few days, and I’ll see what I can do.”

She went to one of the shelves in her library and tipped a blue book outward, opening the secret door. 

“Because of course you have a secret room, Margaret Carter,” Bucky said, shaking his head. “You always liked to play spy.”

“You should see what I have under Fort Lehigh.”

“Ugh,” Tony complained, even as he peered through the secret door eagerly. “Now I’m going to have to go to New Jersey.”

It wasn’t very much space -- Bucky’d had more in his original home -- but it was sealed against the sun, had a bedroom and a small book room. And it would keep him safe. “Thank you,” he said. “Do I even know why you have a safe room?”

“Well, you aren’t the only vampire in the world,” Peggy said. “It serves as a fairly good panic room, for more… unwelcome guests, as well. And maybe, I hoped, someday…”

“That I’d crawl out from whatever rock I was hiding under?”

“Perhaps.”

Bucky was exhausted. How could he have slept for seventy years and still feel like night was _so far away_? He risked a glance at Tony, not certain how to ask-- “Do you-- have daylighter things to do? Or can you stay, a while?”

Tony opened his mouth, then closed it, studying Bucky. Thinking. “Won’t be able to get my hands on that plane for a day or two,” he reasoned. “I could stay.” He glanced at Peggy sidelong. “If you’ve got a laptop or a tablet I can borrow.”

“I’ll bring one down,” Peggy promised. “And then I will have to do something I deplore.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m going to have to call Fury,” she said. “You’ve never met him. He’s the Director of SHIELD, which contains most of what was left of the SSR. Think of him as… Philips, but more annoying.”

“And some snacks,” Tony put in. “We had to cross the Chunnel tonight. I’m _drained_.”

“I thought you were the snack,” Bucky said, grinning.

Peggy gave Bucky a sharp look. “Please,” she said. “The man is my godchild. Let me _pretend _you’re not corrupting him.”

“How do you know it’s not the other way around, auntie?” Tony asked impishly.

***

Flying westward made it easy for Tony to time the flight so that it would still be night when they landed in New York.

It was a somewhat lonely trip, since once they’d sealed the cockpit, they couldn’t open it again until they’d landed. There was an intercom system, but it left a lot to be desired.

It wasn’t without its benefits, though. Tony’s night vision was _much_ better with Bucky’s blood in him, and even flying over the featureless ocean, the shapes of the clouds and the brilliance of the night sky were a wonder.

He pushed the little craft hard, wanting to ensure they had a good couple of hours of night left when they landed.

“I’m sending the landing coordinates to your phone, ducky,” Aunt Peggy said over the intercom. “Fury’s given us a safe harbor.”

Tony checked his phone, then compared the coordinates to his flight plan. “Roger that,” he told the intercom. “Does Fury know about our... special needs?”

“I’m quite certain Fury knows everything,” Aunt Peggy said. “About everyone. Or, at least, he’d like to, and he has a good start. And he can get us in under the radar, which has value.”

Well, that was true. Peggy had given him a code to file with his flight plan that she assured him meant he could deviate from it by several hundred miles along any point of the path without having to file an updated plan. Tony had seen military codes with that kind of leeway, but this wasn’t one of them.

He disengaged the autopilot and adjusted his course. It wouldn’t be long before they were on the ground. Maybe this Fury guy would have some answers for them.

A man in a charcoal suit directed them into a hangar. According to Tony’s map, they were on a decommissioned air-base, but there was nothing cheap, stripped down, or secondhand about the hardware inside the hangar with them: a stealth jet that Tony had never even seen specs for before, and a launch vehicle that, in fact, looked space-worthy. 

“Agent Carter,” the man in the suit said, coming in, and breathing just a little faster, as if he’d run in from the tarmac. “I’m Agent Coulson, if you and the Sergeant would care to accompany me, we have our documents expert working on accommodating your rather special needs.”

“I’m not really an agent anymore,” Aunt Peggy said. “Retired director, point of fact.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the Agent said. “It’s good to have you back aboard.”

Tony finished his shutdown checks as fast as he could and stepped out, taking the place, somewhat pointedly, between Peggy and Bucky. No way was he being left behind to twiddle his thumbs while they played spy.

Agent Coulson acknowledged him with a quick, “Mr. Stark. This way, please.” 

He took them to a lift in the back corner of the hangar, which descended several floors before halting smoothly and letting them out into a wide, modern-looking hall. If it weren’t for the utter lack of windows and the faintest smell of deodorizer in the recycled air, Tony might have suspected they were in an office building. “The director would like to speak with you, Mr. Stark,” Coulson said, indicating a door. “I’ll have these two just down the hall, to get all their papers and identification… updated.” He gave Tony a little bland smile. 

Tony considered him for a moment. _Divide and conquer_ was a pretty effective strategy, though there was no question that Tony was the least-deadly member of their group, so Peggy and Bucky probably weren’t in any danger. “If your Fury eats me,” he told Peggy, “you have to avenge me.”

Bucky scoffed. “If Fury so much as looks cross-eyed at you, he will find how, truly and deeply, he has been misnamed.” There was coiled tension in Bucky’s shoulders, like a snake ready to strike.

Probably, Tony should discourage the vampire from committing mayhem in what was no-doubt a tightly-guarded secret installation. But he just kissed Bucky’s cheek and said, “Take care of Aunt Peggy.” He squeezed Bucky’s hand quickly, then painted on his press smile and pushed open the door.

The director’s office was dimly lit and he was a mere shadow against what looked like a holographic light screen, showing the outline of the planet with a few spots, glittering like stars. “Mr. Stark, so nice to make your acquaintance at last,” the man said.

Oh, wow. This Fury guy was almost as much of a drama queen as Tony himself. Tony didn’t let himself be impressed by the staging (even if he was, a little bit). He walked over to the desk, hooked a chair with his foot to pull it out, and took a seat, crossing one ankle over his knee comfortably. “Mr. Fury. My aunt speaks highly of you.” Quite highly, really, if not precisely... _well_.

“It’s a little strange, isn’t it, Mr. Stark?” Fury inquired in a tone that said he wasn’t looking for an answer. “Waking up and discovering the world is just a little bigger than you thought. When my predecessor first gave me the files on the Commandos, I thought it was a _joke_. A way of hazing in the new guy, my clearance fresh and shiny.” He flicked on a single lamp on his desk, illuminating his face; no hair, an eyepatch, and a goatee. He looked like a modern pirate captain more than a secret service agent.

“Well, at least you won’t be looking crosseyed at me,” Tony muttered. “There was a little bit there where I thought I might have dreamed the whole thing. But then he came back, so.” Tony spread his hands. “I guess that means he’s mine.”

“You’re welcome to the job,” Fury said. “Vampires need… a daywalker companion. Even in the oldest of our legends and stories about them. I already know that politely asking you to step aside’s not in the cards. Stubborn, like your old man.”

Tony showed his teeth. “You wouldn’t want that, anyway,” he said mildly. “I can be useful, as long as you’re on my good side.”

“I am happy to let Barnes be your problem,” Fury said. “He’s going to be even more trouble in the modern age than he was when there weren’t cameras on every block. Not to mention you’ll find, I think, that he attracts… trouble. But you’re going after the Captain, so I’ll let you. Here.” He pushed a file across the desk to Tony. “Your father’s maps. Everyplace he looked for the _Valkyrie_.”

Tony wondered how Fury had gotten ahold of those maps. “Great,” he said. He opened the file -- ug, _paper_ \-- and scanned the contents. “You have his notes on the experiments on Rogers, too?”

“Some,” Fury said. “Coulson will make sure you get them. He’s good at that. Also, the report on the Red Plague. It’s almost guaranteed that the _Valkyrie_ went down and the plague was still safely tucked into whatever delivery system Schmidt was using. What’s less clear is the state of it now. As well as the water and ice around the _Valkyrie_.”

“So we’re dredging for Rogers and doing biohazard containment at the same time,” Tony summarized. “Nice. Got any way to keep me from getting infected with this Red Plague, whatever it is?”

“Don’t eat things laying around on the floor,” Fury suggested. “Don’t touch it, don’t drink the water. Probably quarantine yourself for a few days. The ice probably put the plague into an inanimate state. If you can get Rogers and he’s alive, great. If not, best to destroy any and everything on that ship. Global warming has had me concerned for more than one reason.”

“Wow, remind me to put you on my party list,” Tony said. “Right, okay, full hazmat procedures it is, then. Was there anything else, or have you just been keeping me busy while your guy out there tries to convince Bucky and Aunt Peggy to do this without me?”

“I’ve been keeping you busy,” Fury said. He leaned forward, hands planted on the desk. “I don’t necessarily trust you, Stark. You are not prepared for the world as it is and your reputation precedes you. You’re self-destructive, reckless, and prone to displays of narcissism. Still, Agent Carter and Barnes trust you, and this little operation isn’t entirely supported by anyone _official.”_

Tony leaned back in his chair, lifted his eyebrows. “You’re not official?”

"Do I look supportive?" Fury countered. "Your father's obsession with finding Rogers was never endorsed. This is the continuation of a private search and rescue."

Which was a fancy way of saying Tony was funding it, or he was going home. Not that he thought Bucky would let that happen.

Tony closed the file folder and stood up. “Right, well. It hasn’t been fun, let’s not do it again soon.” He tucked the file under his arm and headed for the door.

"You look annoyed, ducky," Aunt Peggy said as soon as he pushed through the door to the other room. "They decided to rename me _Betsy_. Do I look like a Betsy to you?"

“At least you got a name,” Tony said. “Apparently, we are, officially, entirely unsupported in our madcap adventure.” He glanced back toward Fury’s door. “Tell the truth, auntie -- have you ever walked away from that man feeling anything _other_ than annoyed?”

"Rage, a few times," Peggy said. "On the other hand, he's never been one to discount me because of my sex. And he's very good at what he does."

“Yeah, he’d have to be,” Tony admitted. He waved the file at her. “Dad’s search maps. And he says he’ll have Coulson give us copies of Dad’s experimental stuff that had to do with the Commandos, too. Which, secretive as Dad could be, I’m astonished they have any of it. Where’s Bucky?”

"James will be back shortly," she said. "I believe Agent Coulson is making a foolhardy attempt to draw blood from a vampire."

“Well, the two of us have done it, so there’s some kind of precedent.” Tony smirked. “Is he aware that typically one has to make a donation, first?”

"If he didn't know before, he will soon," Peggy said. "Well, I don't know that I expected much from SHIELD. But letting them know what we're about will make some things easier. Assuming we're successful. If we fail to find Steve, they'll ignore it. If we fail utterly, they know enough of the risks to contain it."

“Heartening,” Tony muttered. “Wonder where I can get my hands on a supply of biocontainment suits on short notice...”

“I’ve maintained some contacts, dear,” Peggy said. “We might be able to find someone at Isodyne willing to lend us some equipment with minimal questions asked.”

“As ever, auntie, you’re a marvel.” Tony flipped through the files idly, memorizing the position of each search camp and its radius. His father had been methodical and thorough, as always. It would take some doing to find anything that Howard hadn’t, yet. “What do you think?” he asked. “A night or two at the mansion while I run some analyses and we get our gear together? Maybe a week.”

“That sounds delightful,” Peggy said. She gathered up their paperwork, just as Tony heard-- he wasn’t quite sure. His borrowed senses were enhanced, but he hadn’t practiced with them enough to be certain. And then he was; Bucky, on his way back, the way his feet were hitting the floor indicated that while he wasn’t running, he was _leaving_.

Bucky pushed in through the door on the other side of the conference room, and there was something mesmerizing in the way he moved. It wasn’t quite… sauntering, but more like he’d decided he was either going to kill someone, or get ice cream, and he’d make up his mind when he got there.

“So, I see we’re all having fun,” Tony greeted him. “Did you break their labs?”

“Nothing has been broken that cannot be repaired,” Bucky said, shortly. “This is nothing like the SSR.”

“Well, no, darling, but we were at war,” Peggy said, soothingly. “These days, we are still at war, only with paperwork and bureaucracy instead of Nazis. Personally, I think the Nazis were easier to defeat.”

“Sure,” Tony agreed. “Nazis can’t reproduce nearly as fast as paperwork. I was just telling auntie that we should head into the city as soon as night falls. We’ll stay at the house until we’ve got a good guess for a starting point.”

Bucky nodded, sliding up against Tony’s side, one arm going around Tony’s lower back in an embrace that was almost, but not quite, innocent. There was a pressure to Bucky’s fingers, a sly little caress against the small of Tony’s back that seemed to say _mine_. “Dig into what Howard had, any theories. He was smart, but not always clever. Maybe you’ll see something he missed.”

“That’s the plan,” Tony agreed. “And I want to put my hands on his research, too; that might give us something to work with. If nothing else, it might let us extrapolate what we might expect to find.”

“We’re going to find Steve,” Peggy said, utter conviction in her voice. “And we’re going to bring him home.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Smut-averse readers: beware! Once things start getting too steamy for your tastes, you can just stop there. :)

“This is quite the last place on the planet I thought I’d ever be again,” Peggy said. “And somehow, it seems like yesterday the last time I was here. I expect Mr. Jarvis to open the door and say ‘why, Miss Carter, what trouble have you gotten in since last time?’”

Bucky had never been to the Stark Mansion, although Howard had mentioned it from time to time.

Tony, on the other hand, was practically dragging his feet.

“I miss Jarvis,” he said glumly. He was lingering by the door, looking around the wide foyer as if he expected something to leap out from behind the ornately-framed artwork and bite him. He looked up the staircase, and then down one hall. “Yep. Here we are. What rooms do you want, auntie?”

“I spent several weeks here,” she said, “when your father was wanted for treason. Exciting times. Javis gave me the Willow suite. I think I should fancy staying there again. Perhaps I will grow reaccustomed to this rather younger body I seem to find myself with.”

“I said I was sorry,” Bucky said. He’d probably say it again a few times, before she got over her huff at him.

“_I’m_ not,” Tony said. “I think you look great.” He smirked at Peggy, irrepressible, but he reached for Bucky with one hand, silently begging for support.

Bucky twined his fingers with Tony’s. “Show me around,” he suggested, “whatever you got that’s windowless, and maybe underground?”

Tony grinned up at him, some of the tension melting away. “Oh, you’re going to like this,” he promised. “Dad got _way_ into the panic-room craze-- Shit, you weren’t awake for that. Well, you’ll see. Auntie’s safe room has _nothing_ on Dad’s. Come on.”

He led Bucky deeper into the house, down a hallway and then another. He paused at a bookshelf -- in the _hallway_; who _did_ that? -- and pulled a book from the shelf, reaching behind it to trip a mechanism that opened a door behind them. “I know, the bookcase schtick is a million years old, but it does, actually, make it really easy to hide things like this.”

“My secret door was under the staircase,” Bucky said. “A catch under the lip of the bottom stair, and the whole assembly just lifts right up. No one notices it, because they expect the stairs to sound hollow when you walk up them, anyway.”

“Clever,” Tony agreed. “Where was that?”

“Shelbyville, Indiana,” Bucky said. “Which, in retrospect, does not seem like the sort of place a vampire should come from.”

The new door opened on a set of stairs leading down; a light flickered to life as they descended. It was much deeper than a single flight of stairs, and ended in another door. This one looked like a bank vault door. Or perhaps a submarine. Tony punched a code into a number pad, then spun the wheel until a pneumatic hiss sounded and the heavy door opened.

The safe room was actually several rooms; there was an entire apartment there -- a cozy living room and a kitchen and several bedrooms, plus storage. It was nicely furnished and even decorated.

“Quite pleasant,” Bucky said. There was something about being underground that just made him feel safe. Like a fat bear waiting for winter to be over, snug and secure. He could make himself a home in a place like this. Maybe. “Tony, my love, are you… what’s wrong?”

“I’m fine,” Tony said. “It’s fine. I don’t really like this house much. Not... Not a lot of good memories, here. But we’ll only be here a few days. I can deal.”

Bucky dropped into one of the chairs, his grip on Tony’s hand dragging Tony along with him until Tony was sitting in his lap. “A few days,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be all gritting teeth, though. Make you some new memories, maybe.” He knew what it was like; living in a place where he never felt like he belonged, when just existing was a subtle torture. His sire’s home, where he was summoned like a servant, made to kneel, existing to obey. He came when he was called, he… complied with his sire’s will. And thinking of that grand castle, with its multitude of luxuries, decadences, the blood dolls, just waiting to be fed upon, the-- he shuddered the thought away. 

“Yeah?” Tony was looking at him, head cocked slightly. “Want to start on that now?”

There was no trace of ulterior motive in Tony’s posture; the way his blood rushed sudden in his veins. Making new memories or not, Tony went from troubled to turned on with the same precision of his fancy sports car. Bucky let his hand drift over the expanse of Tony’s thigh, covered in denim, felt the muscle underneath, the way he clenched and relaxed. He was perfect, and beautiful, and tough and fragile all at the same time, delicate in the way that all mortals were, and hard as iron, in the way they could sometimes be.

“Your aunt will not come looking for us for some time,” Bucky said. “And the sun is on the rise. A good long stretch of time, and nothing urgent to distract us.”

“Mm,” Tony agreed, leaning in to nip teasingly at Bucky’s lip. “You sure you’re not going to just get sleepy on me as soon as the sun’s up?”

“I won’t leave you hanging,” Bucky promised, then opened his mouth, tempting Tony to deepen the kiss. There was something about Tony, something that was somehow _more_ than most mortals. Larger than life, maybe. Flamboyant and dramatic and brilliant. A firecracker. Bucky couldn’t get enough of him. He licked at Tony’s mouth, tasting him.

Tony hummed and yielded to the temptation, testing and mapping Bucky’s mouth, teasing at the sensitive corners, dragging his teeth over Bucky’s lip. His body rolled against Bucky’s, blood-warm and eager, and his hands tangled in Bucky’s hair. “Going to do me in the chair?” he panted, breath ticklish against Bucky’s ear, “or do you want to take it to a bed?”

“Chairs are good,” Bucky pointed out. “Watch you hover over me like some sort of glorious butterfly.” He flexed his legs, rocking up against the perfect weight of Tony’s body. “Or lay you down, spread you out on a bed. Whatever’s your pleasure, darling.”

Tony shifted, straddling Bucky’s thighs and kneeling up, looking down as he started unbuttoning Bucky’s shirt. “Going to do me in the chair, then,” he murmured. “It’s all good, to me. Long as it’s you.” He pushed back the collar of Bucky’s shirt and leaned down to suck on Bucky’s collarbone, teeth scraping.

Bucky let his eyes flutter shut, head tipping back to give Tony access. He loved the feel of Tony’s teeth on him, the way it mimicked feeding, and his fangs descended at the thought. Blood and hunger, they were all the same when it came to Tony. He was the perfect vessel, Bucky thought. Like he’d been born waiting for Bucky’s mouth on him. 

Skipping some of the preliminaries, Bucky moved his hands from Tony’s knees, up his thighs, until he was sliding one hand into Tony’s rear pocket, holding him close, cupping him through the jeans with the other hand. “You’re good for me,” Bucky said. “None better.”

Tony groaned and pushed into the touch. He pushed Bucky’s shirt open, sliding those hot hands all over Bucky’s chest and stomach, pinching Bucky’s nipples and dragging his fingernails along Bucky’s ribs. “You might have ruined me for sex with humans,” he confessed.

“You’ll just have to keep me satisfied, then, so you don’t have to go back to it,” Bucky teased. Tony was more than enough to keep Bucky coming back, wanting that body as much, or even more, than he wanted Tony’s blood. His companionship, too, was highly valued. Clever and quick, smart mouthed and sassy. Everything about him drew Bucky in, until he was as ensnared as a fly in the web. 

“I endeavor to give satisfaction,” Tony said, laughing a little. Those nimble, busy hands were tugging at the front of Bucky’s pants, now, unbuttoning and sliding under the waistband to trail over Bucky’s length. “What do you want?”

“I want to take you, make love with you, and drink your blood when you’re drunk on it, taste what I’ve done to you, and then sing you down to sleep and listen to your heart beating while you dream.”

“Has anyone ever told you,” Tony said, voice hitching and somewhat breathless, “that you’re a romantic?” He stripped off his own shirt without ceremony, dropping it to the floor. “If I tried to say something like that, it would just sound cheesy as shit. But you make it work. Is that one of your vampire powers?” He smirked a little, even as his hand worked deeper into Bucky’s pants.

Bucky touched Tony’s cheek, cupping the side of his face. “No one has ever said it,” Bucky told him, “because I’ve never-- You’re very special, Tony. Don’t doubt that. Rare and precious, and I’ve never been called romantic before, as I’ve never felt the need to be so, before.” He drew Tony down for another kiss, soft and easy, letting his lips mold to Tony’s, trying to punctuate his sincerity with action. 

Tony made a sound, something helpless and sweet, and melted into it, his arms around Bucky’s neck, his mouth opening to Bucky’s explorations. His hips rolled against Bucky’s in a slow rhythm, not quite needy and desperate yet, but urgent.

Surging upward, Bucky got them both on their feet long enough to deal with the nuisance that was pants. Tony’s somewhat tighter than Bucky’s, but Bucky kept a hand on Tony’s hip so he didn’t fall over. He admired the effect of that skin-tight denim, but wondered if it was worth the effort to have to struggle into and out of them.

He used that hand on Tony’s hip to pull them together, rutting up against Tony’s thigh. “Grab th’ slick,” he told Tony, and then was utterly unable to help a meaningful caress against Tony’s ass as he bent to rummage in their bags.

Tony groaned and pushed back into the touch, and if it took a little longer than it should have for him to find the little bottle of slick, he wasn’t complaining about the distraction. “God, that’s nice.” He finally straightened and turned, pressing that lithe, beautiful body against Bucky’s. He nudged and poked until Bucky fell back down into the chair, and then climbed up, eyes hot with promise.

Bucky spread his thighs as wide as he could in the confines of the chair, likewise pushing Tony open and exposed, that cock a proud curve against Tony’s belly. They had all day; he could take every second he wanted to wring as much pleasure from Tony as possible. He ran a teasing finger up Tony’s length, watching every jerk and shiver with delight. 

Tony’s head fell back, exposing the long line of his throat, a temptation all its own. His eyes fluttered closed, and he gasped and panted, straining to arch into the touch. “Oh... that feels amazing.” Without looking, his hands closed on Bucky’s shoulders, sliding down over arms and chest.

Bucky shifted, reached for the lubricant. A few smears on his fingertips and he teased up and down Tony’s crack, one hand reaching under and back, the other closing a loose fist around Tony’s cock. 

“Come closer, darling,” he crooned, mouth pressing light over Tony’s throat as he worked him, both hands moving in wicked tandem. He flicked his tongue over the vein and as Tony pushed down into that touch, he bit. Not a deep bite, not to feed, just enough to tease, raising a few drops of blood that Bucky licked away, sealing the puncture. It started the reaction to a vampire’s bite, the blood ecstasy, that was the saving grace of a vampire’s feeding. Just a drop, here and there. He could do that until Tony was half crazed with need, drowsy and near delirious.

Tony’s breath caught, his hands tightening on Bucky’s shoulders, and whined a little as Bucky drew back. “Bucky...” He rolled his hips again, a fitful arrhythmia, jerking forward into Bucky’s grasp and then back into Bucky’s fingers. “Tease,” he accused, not sounding at all put out.

“You like it,” Bucky told him, which was probably true. And then, “I like it. Like you needy for me. Do you have any idea--” No, Tony probably did not; being a vampire had been a very lonely existence. Not knowing who to trust, being utterly vulnerable during the day, knowing everyone who touched you, or talked to you _wanted _something from you, or was scared to death of you. Tony couldn’t possibly understand what it was to be a monster, and to have someone still want him. Accept him.

“I like it,” Tony agreed. “I like the way your hands feel, your skin. I like the way you taste. I like the way you look at me, the way you talk.” He paused, biting his lip as he rocked and swayed, letting Bucky’s touch move him. “I like _you_.”

The blood was almost as good, sometimes even better, than the sex. Like breathing, after holding your breath a long time. Each little lick, each taste, was heaven, pure and simple. Other vamps -- and Bucky knew more of them than he wanted to -- glutted themselves on it. Gorged. Killed in feeding. It didn’t have to be that way; mistaking rape for love.

Bucky loved, and he wanted to be loved. He gave Tony more friction, finger breaching at Tony’s opening. Moved him, easy and slow. Nipped him again, licked the blood from his skin. Kissed Tony with the taste of Tony’s blood still on his lips.

Tony sighed and gasped, breath hitching and catching. He caught Bucky’s lip between his teeth and sucked, licked into Bucky’s mouth, chasing the taste of the blood, or maybe just Bucky himself. His hands moved, restless, over Bucky’s shoulders and throat and hair, straying downward between them to tease Bucky’s nipples, dipping lower according to some pattern only Tony himself knew to skate that hot touch along Bucky’s cock.

“There ya go,” Bucky crooned, soft and easy, licking his way up Tony’s throat to nip at his ear. “You just go right on and ride me, let me do all the work--” He teased at Tony’s opening, hot and tight.

“How,” Tony panted, “how are you doing the work if I’m riding?” He didn’t slow down at all, though, wriggling a little to push back into Bucky’s touch, needy and demanding.

“Gonna hold you up,” Bucky told him. “I ain’t a soft, gentle sort of ride.” He finished slicking Tony open and lifted him, easing him up and then down, letting gravity press Tony down, letting the slick ease Bucky’s way up and in. Bucky let his head fall back, exposing his throat the way he’d never do for anyone he didn’t trust, hoping Tony knew all the things he couldn’t say, or hadn’t said yet, but would. 

A soft sigh, a heated clench, and Bucky groaned in pleasure as Tony took him down to the hilt.

Tony echoed the sound, shuddering as his body gave way, tight and searingly hot. He tipped forward, nuzzling at Bucky’s throat, soft little nips, his breath spilling across Bucky’s cool skin. “Oh, god, that’s good, that’s... oh, yeah.” He held the position for an unbearably long moment, and then braced his arms on Bucky’s shoulders and began to move, his body rocking and undulating. Slow at first, and then faster.

Bucky shifted, spread his thighs a little wider, and moved, rolling his hips upward, meeting every one of Tony’s movements, bringing them together in a heated dance, older than time. Every third, or sometimes fourth, stroke, Bucky would nip Tony’s throat, his shoulder, a graze of fang along his bicep, and lick the blood clean, a half dozen tiny wounds, each one tasting like ecstasy, each one doubling, tripling the sensation for Tony, and flooding that taste back into Bucky’s mouth.

It wasn’t long at all before each breath Tony released slid out on a whimper or a moan or a curse, and not much longer after that when the curses turned to pleas, Bucky’s name sweet on Tony’s lips as he begged. “Please, please, oh Bucky, oh _god_, I can’t, I can’t--”

“There you are, doll,” Bucky said, still rocking him, easy and slick, their bodies making soft noises as they shifted. “Look how perfect you are for me. So wrung out, so wrecked. Hold tight, doll, I’ll bring you there.” He buried his face against Tony’s throat, damp with sweat and blood, and bit down hard. Thrust up into Tony’s willing, wanton body. Feeling the echo of it in each throb of Tony’s heart, each rush of blood. He kept one hand on Tony’s back, holding him in place, and opened a thin cut on his own throat with a single swipe of his nails. He pulled his mouth away from Tony’s neck. “Go on, love. Take it, take it.”

Tony blinked his eyes open, then lunged, sealing his mouth over Bucky’s throat and sucking, _hard_, hard enough that if Bucky had been mortal, it would leave a bruise. The sound he made at the first swallow was nearly better than sex itself, hunger and relief and pure, driving _need_. He sucked again, his body still moving, still rocking them together. His groans spiraled up into a desperate keen, and he spilled over onto Bucky’s stomach and chest with a cry.

Bucky jerked as Tony clenched down on him, his body going through all the motions of orgasm, including the feeling of relief and joy and elation, a pure intense possession for the man in his arms. “You’re mine, love,” he said, urgently. “My love, _mine_.” Knowing that Tony probably wouldn’t hear him, or would be too overcome to understand. He claimed Tony, but knew that, in all truth, it was more that Bucky belonged _utterly_ to Tony. He petted and soothed Tony, rocking him very gently. “You know, it’s sort of ridiculous, when you think about it, that vampires can still make love at all. There’s no need for it, no purpose. I can’t… sire children, not in the normal way you think about it. Sometimes I think we’re a mockery of life, don’t need to breathe, no heartbeat… and then there’s something like this; the way I take you in my arms and _feel_… that makes me wonder.”

“Mm,” Tony sighed, going utterly limp and boneless, pressing his face into the curve of Bucky’s neck. “S’magic. Doesn’t need to make sense.”

“No, I imagine it doesn’t,” Bucky said, lightly stroking Tony’s hair. “It doesn’t need to make sense at all.” _As long as I have you, it can be as nonsensical as it wishes to be. _

Tony snuggled in closer. “Should go find a bed,” he mumbled, “before we go to sleep. Don’t want a crick in my neck.” Despite his words, he made no effort to move.

“I got you,” Bucky said, again. Even more tenderly than the first time. He stood, getting an arm under Tony’s thighs and carrying him. It wasn’t far to the bedroom, a few steps, and then he was laying Tony down on the comforter. “You sleep. Dream for me, if you want. Nothing bad, though. Just good dreams.”

“Mm,” Tony agreed, not even opening his eyes, though he clung to Bucky’s hand. “Stay. You give me the best dreams.”

“All right, love,” Bucky said, settling in next to him. “Scooch over a bit there, bedhog.”


	8. Chapter 8

Tony drifted, warm and sated, feeling content. Feeling _cherished_. There were fingers carding through his hair and that felt nice. There was a taste on his lips, something familiar and tantalizing and sparkling, like champagne bubbles but thick and rich, somehow.

Chasing down the flavor pulled him toward wakefulness, and he nearly abandoned the thread and sank back down into sleep, but then he had it: blood. Bucky’s blood.

His eyes opened of their own accord. They were still in the bed in Howard’s survival pod. Tony was curled around Bucky, head cradled in the hollow of Bucky’s shoulder. His body ached, just a little, in his ass and his throat. _Double penetration_, Tony thought, a little ridiculously, and huffed out a laugh at himself.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” Bucky said, not even moving. “Does it still count as morning if it’s more like six in the evening?”

“Time is subjective,” Tony said. He yawned and sat up to stretch. “I’m a little surprised Aunt Peggy hasn’t already stormed in here to demand we get a move on.”

“She’s walked by the door a few times,” Bucky said, and he squirmed a little into the warm spot where Tony had been. “Trying to decide if it was safe to interrupt. And now she may as well wait until I can move around freely.”

“I’ve never known her to be that restrained before,” Tony said. He climbed over Bucky and out of the bed. Another heroic stretch made his muscles crackle and the warmth of waking blood run through his limbs. He’d never really paid attention to his pulse or bloodflow before, but it felt nice. “Cosy as this place is, it’s a little spartan on bathing facilities, and the food leaves a lot to be desired. Luckily, there isn’t actually an imminent threat of nuclear annihilation, so we can go back into the part of the house with real plumbing and fresh food for a shower and breakfast. I’m starving.”

Bucky ducked his chin a little. “That’s probably my fault,” he said. “My blood will heal you from injuries or illness, but you still need to make some of your own. And, you know, not die while mine is in you. That’s a traumatic experience, and I’d rather you-- well, at least be prepared, if you’re going to.”

“Wasn’t planning on it, anytime soon,” Tony agreed. “And I certainly don’t mind letting you snack on me from time to time, but yes, food. I want meat. And maybe some broccoli.” He left the bedroom and found his pants discarded on the floor in the little sitting room. Aunt Peggy probably didn’t want to see him in his altogether. Also, cooking while naked was a hazard he was unwilling to risk.

“I appreciate that,” Bucky said. “There are a number of offenses on my head right now, but unlawful siring is something I’ve managed to avoid.”

Tony glanced back over his shoulder. “There are laws for vampires?” He scooped up Bucky’s clothes and tossed them in Bucky’s general direction.

Bucky snagged the shirt out of the air and pulled it on. “Well, perhaps laws is an overly formal term. Rigidly enforced custom, maybe?”

“You’ll have to fill me in on that, sometime,” Tony said, because the idea of an entire society and culture for vampires and their associates was intriguing, but not as intriguing as getting to pee and then having a large steak. And coffee. Lots and lots of coffee.

“Should it become relevant, yes,” Bucky said. He pulled his pants up and raked his fingers through his hair. 

When Tony opened the sealed door, the smell of coffee was already heavy in the air, and he followed his nose straight to the kitchen, where Aunt Peggy was sitting, a few banker’s boxes of papers on the table in front of her, sipping at her cup. She grimaced every time she took a sip -- Aunt Peggy would drink coffee, lacking other options, but it wasn’t her preferred, and Tony knew for a fact that every tea bag in the house was probably dated from her last visit.

“Morning, auntie,” Tony said, not bothering to try to hide the bite-marks on his neck. He hadn’t had any shame before; he refused to start now. “Find anything interesting?” He went straight to the counter and dug around in the cabinet until he’d retrieved the biggest mug he could find. He poured until the coffee lapped at the rim, then opened the freezer, hoping against hope that he could find some meat that wasn’t freezer-burnt.

“Not terribly much, yet,” she said, turning a page. “Your father’s loathing of proper paperwork was not nearly as legendary as his lack of organization. The sort of man who throws everything in a box by what layer it was on his desk, and hopes he never needs it again.”

“Yeah, he was pretty happy about switching everything to digital, except those files aren’t any better organized, and his file-naming conventions are basically nonexistent.” Aha! A package of sirloin that didn’t look oddly-colored. He tossed it onto the counter, then poked into the fridge. Steak and eggs sounded good, if the eggs hadn’t gone bad.

Bucky stuck a spoon in Tony’s coffee, stirring it. “Smells good,” he said. “Too bad it does nothing for me. I remember Howard’s string of secretaries, too. Half of ‘em were there for something other than their filing skills. The other half were looking to transfer out as soon as possible.”

“Yeah, that didn’t get any better as he got older,” Tony said. “Christ, we need to put in a grocery order if we’re going to be here more than two days.” He put the eggs on the counter and threw the steak in the microwave to defrost. “Here, give me a stack to look through while that’s working.”

“I did find all of Barnes’... acquisition paperwork, for lack of a better turn of phrase,” Peggy said, shoving one of the folders at him.

“I remember that day,” Bucky said. “You shot me.”

“Didn’t stick,” Peggy said. “And I didn’t aim for anything vital, anyway.”

Tony took the folder and put it on the counter, flipping through the pages one at a time. “Wow, look how clean-cut you looked,” he marveled, staring at a photo of Bucky, short-haired and clean-shaven, unbelievably dapper in an old-fashioned uniform. He turned another page over and squinted at Howard’s only half-intelligible writing. “...Samples,” he read. “What kind of samples?”

“Every sort,” Bucky said. “Some dame cut my hair. They took skin debriding samples and blood samples, and tissue samples and some ass went after me with a tool to take a bone marrow sample. But mostly blood.” He shuddered, rubbing at his arms. “I wasn’t sure what they were going to do with me once they completed all their tests and observations.”

Tony reached out, patting Bucky’s arm soothingly. “Wonder what happened to everything.” The microwave beeped, and he pulled out the steak and prodded at it. Good enough. He drizzled some oil in the frying pan and turned on the stove.

“Quite a bit of it was used to create the serum,” Peggy said. “Which Howard and Dr. Erskine refined until they made… well, Steve.”

“Technically, not my childe,” Bucky pointed out, as if Tony was one of the enforcers of that strict custom. “He’s not a vampire. He’s something else.”

“The rest of it--” Peggy was thumbing through another file. “_Primary residence_? Here in the house? Did Howard have another storage box, or a safe?”

“Probably,” Tony said. “I haven’t been in his study since...” He shrugged. She’d know what he meant. “I’ll tackle that after breakfast.”

Bucky watched him with great interest while Tony cooked, and then ate, a half-smile playing around his lips. 

Aunt Peggy, on the other hand, rolled her eyes. “You’re taking advantage of him, James,” she said. “He looks like a refugee from your favorite kebab shop.”

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Tony complained, using a piece of steak to mop up egg yolk. “Besides, it’s a mutually beneficial arrangement.”

“There are advantages to vampire blood,” Aunt Peggy admitted, “but you should be aware that you can grow addicted to it. And each time you drink--”

“Carter,” Bucky said, shaking a finger at her. “Leave it alone. I’ll tell Tony what he needs to know without your colorful commentary, thank you.”

Tony glanced from Bucky to Aunt Peggy and back, then stuffed the rest of his breakfast into his mouth. If she was really determined for him to know whatever it was, she wouldn’t have let Bucky hush her, he was certain. “Add it to the list,” he told Bucky. “Come on, let’s go see if we can find any more secret doors in Dad’s study.”

The study was… well, not quite musty and dusty, since Tony had a cleaning staff on duty who came by several times a year to keep the place clean, make sure it hadn’t burned to the ground -- Tony would prefer to be the arsonist, if that was going to happen -- or anything like that. But the furniture was covered with neat drop cloths to keep expensive fabrics from getting sun-faded. The cluster of cut-crystal decanters near Howard’s desk were empty, which seemed somehow jarring.

The desk first. Anything that was likely to be important, Howard probably would have wanted to keep close. He pulled out the drawers and eyed their construction for false bottoms and backs. While he was doing that, Peggy was methodically taking down all the framed art and photos on the walls, looking for a concealed safe.

“He hasn’t been here for a long time, and no one’s found anything,” Bucky said, checking the light fixtures for secret latches, and knocking gently on the wall to listen for an echo. “And there’s no convenient bookshelf.” 

Peggy hung the last painting back on the wall. “Nothing here,” she said. “Which seems unlike Howard. He tended to like to gloat, which meant keeping his accomplishments close at hand. Skinny little dragon with a bad mustache.”

Tony laughed a little at the description, though he was more frustrated than amused. She was right; if Howard had a secret stash, it would be close. All he had to do was _think_ like Howard. But he’d never been as good as he’d wanted to be at discerning his father’s thoughts. Tony leaned back in the desk chair, folding his hands behind his head the way he’d seen Howard do a thousand times. Propped his feet up on the corner of the desk -- it was scuffed from enduring years of Howard’s shoes -- and directed his gaze upward. The very picture of Howard chewing over some problem, he thought. It lacked only a cigar in one hand and a glass of scotch at his elbow.

Well, maybe not the cigar. Tony could remember Howard smoking in the study pretty clearly, but his mother had banned the practice of smoking in the house one year while Tony had been at boarding school, complaining that the smoke was turning all the walls and ceilings musty and yellow--

Tony sat up so suddenly the chair nearly flipped on him. The ceiling tile just above the desk was a few shades darker than the surrounding ones. He climbed up onto the desk and reached. The ceilings were high, but Howard hadn’t been much taller than Tony... There. He pushed the tile aside.

And there, just barely visible even to Tony’s vampiric-blood-enhanced sight, was a lockbox. Stretching up on his toes, he was just barely able to snag a corner of it and pull it closer, until it tumbled down into Tony’s waiting hands.

“Oh, brilliant, Tony,” Aunt Peggy said, leaning over to look at the box covetously. She squinted, and then-- “Huh. You must have been all of about three…” She turned the box to display a somewhat lopsided sparkle-star sticker on the back, faded and old, with peeled up edges as if someone had tried to scrape it off and given it up as a bad job. 

Tony wondered briefly how hard Howard had smacked him for daring to defile his precious box, then shook off the thought. He eyed the lock instead. “Should be able to pick it,” he said thoughtfully. “Or maybe just take it down to the workshop and get some industrial cutters.”

Bucky picked the box up, spreading his hands wide to grip the top and the bottom, and then-- with an earsplitting sound of rending metal -- wrenched it apart. “Or I could cheat.”

The contents of the box spilled out over Howard’s desk, files, a few reels of film, several test tubes sealed with rubber stoppers and neatly labeled, a packet of microscope slides, and-- 

Several polaroids slid out as well. On one of them, Tony recognized _himself_. No older than four, with a bandaid on his upper arm. There were a series of numbers along the bottom, the date, time, Tony’s vitals. _Fourth Injection_.

Tony blinked, turned the picture over, but there was nothing else on the back. He looked at the numbers. They didn’t mean anything to him. He picked up another of the pictures. He was even younger in that one, but the inscription was the same -- incomprehensible numbers, date, time, _Second Injection_. “What the hell, was... Was Dad _experimenting_ on me?”

“Well, it shouldn’t surprise me,” Aunt Peggy said, frowning, her hands on her hips. “Howard viewed people and machines as much the same; a thing to take apart and make them work _better_.”

“Experimenting with _what_,” Bucky wondered. He plucked one of the tubes up, reading the label on the side. He read off a series of numbers, then blinked, stared at Peggy. “Carter?”

“It is,” she said, without hesitating. “Why-- do you suppose--”

The numbers matched the numbers on one of the polaroids. “What is it?” Tony asked. His voice didn’t shake, almost. “What’s in there?” He reached for the test tube, not sure he wanted to know.

“That’s Steve’s service number,” Peggy said. “I believe this may be… well, Steve’s blood. I thought it was all destroyed, or lost.”

“Why, though?” Bucky repeated. “It’s not vampiric, there’s… Steve couldn’t pass on vampirism, or the serum, even if he wanted to.”

“Are you sure about that?” Tony wondered. He looked down at his hand. Flexed it, curling it into a fist and spreading it open again, fingers splayed wide. It felt oddly like manipulating a mechanism, a robotic hand, nothing actually attached to him. “If Dad was trying to recreate that serum... Maybe he thought if I had some of Steve’s blood in me, I’d react better.” That thought, too, was strangely detached. It was probably for the best. If he thought too much about Howard experimenting on _his own son_, he... wasn’t sure what he’d do, but it probably wouldn’t be pretty.

“A few years after the war,” Peggy said, slowly, “your father and I nearly had a permanent falling out. He was accused of treason, went into hiding. I worked with Mr. Jarvis for _months_, trying to find the real traitor. To clear Howard’s name. It eventually came to light that your father was being framed because it was thought he had -- and did, indeed, have -- samples left over from the tests on Barnes and Rogers. He kept saying he was sure, positive, that the cure for cancer, for all diseases, were there, in the blood.” She met Bucky’s gaze. “What we did, during war. That was wrong and we should never have done it. I destroyed Howard’s sample. I thought that was the end of it.”

“Clearly, it wasn’t,” Tony said. He sat back down, somewhat less gracefully than he’d wanted. “So what... what does it mean?” He looked up, hanging on Bucky’s gaze like a lifeline. “What did he _do_ to me?”

“I don’t know,” Bucky said, spreading his hands. “You… you’re normal, perfectly healthy. You smell utterly delicious, but not… vampiric. I can’t--” He leaned in and sniffed at Tony’s throat. “I couldn’t taste anything unusual in your blood.”

“How often do you get sick, darling?” Aunt Peggy asked him. “I remember you broke your arm when you were eight, do you recall how long you were in a cast?”

Tony tried to remember, but time flowed differently in his memory. “I don’t know. Too long, I remember thinking at the time. I’ve always been a quick healer, but no one’s ever said anything to me about it being, you know, _unnaturally_ fast.” He thought back, frowning. “I don’t... get sick very often. But I don’t _not_ get sick.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Bucky said. “What possible reason would Howard want to experiment with vampiric blood, if not to speed healing? There’s virtually nothing else a mortal can do with it. You can’t reach-- oh. _Oh_.” Bucky didn’t sit down so much as he fell onto the floor. “Is it even _possible_?”

“What?” Tony scrambled out of the chair to kneel beside Bucky. “What is it?”

“I don’t know how to explain it, not properly,” Bucky said. “But… I have a sense of my bloodline. They’re nebulous, tenuous connections, but-- if I concentrate, I can. Well, for lack of a better explanation, I _feel_ where they are. Sometimes I get flickers of how they’re feeling. The closer my sire is to me, the more I can… sense from him. It’s very subtle. A vague yearning to go _that way_.” He waved a hand, seemingly at random, but decidedly north-east.

Tony frowned. “You think he was trying to... what. Turn me into some kind of lodestone, to help him find your friend?”

“He was _obsessed _with finding Steve,” Peggy said. “He believed that the ice would have flash-frozen Steve’s body, kept him alive. Preserved. And that he could be recovered, that he would heal from whatever damage had been done, so long as we could just find him. _The best thing I ever created_, he told me one time. I think, sometimes, it was more than that. Some sort of bond, between them. Howard suffered intense depression from the loss.” 

“How would that even work?” Tony wondered. “What did he think I’d be able to do, just close my eyes and click my heels together three times and wish really hard?”

“I’m not sure--” Aunt Peggy said.

“You found me,” Bucky said, very softly. “_You_. You, out of all the hundreds and thousands of people who'd been on that mountain. You came right to me. He’s not my childe, but Steve is of my bloodline. And you came right to me.”

Tony stared at Bucky uneasily. “That was... there was an _avalanche_,” he pointed out. “If it hadn’t been for that, I’d have gone right by you.” But would he? Why _had_ he decided to blaze his own trail down the back side of the mountain, rather than taking one of the paths? Tony chewed on his lip. “I guess we can... I mean, I could try, maybe. Can’t hurt anything, except to feel kind of silly.”

“If we can triangulate Steve’s position,” Aunt Peggy said, her voice was shaking, “we could find him. We could, actually, _find him_.”


	9. Chapter 9

“One of my sisters taught me this, originally,” Bucky said, sitting cross-legged in the grass. “My vampiric sisters, I mean. My human sister was younger than me, and I taught her letters and math, and she taught me to bake a cake. But Natasha. She was Russian, originally, although you leave behind those sorts of alliances when you become a vampire.” Or, so he’d been told. He had not, in fact, abandoned the United States, one of the reasons he was on the outs with most of vampire society, unwilling to put the interests of the Council over those of mortals. “Close your eyes and get a sense of… me. Without sight or smell or touch, but just, what my presence feels like.”

He was sitting very close to Tony, but not quite touching. Bucky could feel Tony, the warm, living presence of him, like a red and gold blaze in his mind. 

It hadn’t been easy, to learn to separate his thoughts of people from the actual people. But he could. Tony. Peggy. Further out he could sense the pricks of light and darkness that were his sisters and brothers. He didn’t do more than notice them, naming each one as he passed them. Too much digging and they might feel _him_.

“You sound like some mystical hoodoo hippie,” Tony complained. “Far out. Groovy.” He rolled his eyes, but then closed them. “How am I supposed to _feel_ without any of my _feelings?_”

Bucky reached out, touched his thumb to the spot between Tony’s eyes, then withdrew. “Do you feel it, even after I am no longer touching you? Concentrate on that residual pressure, the sense that it was me.”

Tony frowned a little, concentrating. “...Okay,” he said cautiously. “Like... the afterimage in your eyes after a camera flash.” He frowned harder. “I... maybe? Or maybe it’s just that I know you’re right there.”

“That’s all right,” Bucky said. “You’re just getting used to it. It’s subtle, at first. Sometimes you don’t even notice it. Your blood is part of what makes up me, it calls to you, a very gentle pull. But I’m not you, and if you concentrate, focus on it, you can feel the… alienness that is me, different from you. Separate, and yet, wanting to be together. It sounds stupider than it is, I know, stop scowling.”

Tony huffed in exasperation and wriggled a little, settling himself more comfortably. “Okay, Your Alienness, there’s... something. Maybe. A presence. Or an overactive imagination. One of the two. How do we figure out which it is?”

“Hold still a moment, keep your eyes closed,” Bucky told him, and withdrew the strip of dishtowel he’d liberated from the Stark’s kitchen, tied it over Tony’s eyes. “You stay here, and I’ll move around you. See if you can feel which direction I am.”

Bucky took several steps backward, relying on all his vampiric abilities to keep him soundless. He didn’t need to breathe, he could set his foot so lightly that the grass would barely bend. Even with the aid of enhanced senses, from more than thirty feet away or so, Tony had almost no chance of hearing him.

Tony cocked his head, obviously trying to listen anyway. He sat very still for a long moment, his brow working as he tried to concentrate, to force muscles to work that he hadn’t even known about a few hours ago. Hesitantly, he lifted a hand, pointing.

“Very good,” Bucky said. “Again.” He moved, a few feet further back, somewhat to the left of his original position, watching as Tony’s nostrils flared, unconsciously trying to scent him, the way his head tipped, trying to hear him.

Tony’s head swiveled, seeking. He made a frustrated sound and put his hands over his ears, and went very, very still. Slowly, his head turned again, until he was facing Bucky directly. He didn’t move for another long moment, and then he pointed again.

“See? I knew you could do it,” Bucky said. “You’re so bright, to me. Like a song in my head. I could find you halfway around the world just listening to it.”

“It’s... weird,” Tony said. “But it’s like. Like watching a polaroid develop. Which you have no idea what that is, but trust me, that’s what it’s like. Everything’s all dark, and then I think _maybe_ I can see something, and then there’s another little patch of light, and another, and then before I realize it, there you are.”

Bucky shook his head. “Whatever words help you visualize it. It’s a Blood Bond, a… perhaps _sacred_ is a little strong. With each sharing of blood, the bond grows. Mutual aid, and comfort.”

Tony tugged the blindfold off and looked at Bucky. “Aid and comfort, huh? How long does it last? I mean -- can you see anyone you’ve ever given blood to?”

“As much as it seems I must do it regularly,” Bucky said, smirking, “you and Peggy really are special. I feed from many humans without giving them my blood in exchange. There aren’t any other mortals still alive that have tasted my blood. My sire, obviously, and through him, I can feel his other childer.”

Tony snorted. “Sire, childer... Do vampires really talk like that? Should I be able to see Aunt Peggy, then? If we’ve both got your blood in us?”

“We really do,” Bucky said. “Vampires, well, some of us, are _ancient_. I’m fairly young, for a vampire. Only a hundred years old, give or take. And mostly it doesn’t count because I spent so much of it in torpor. Very low ranking, among vampires.”

“Huh. Okay. I reserve the right to think it’s kind of ridiculous, though.” Tony grinned at him, then settled back down, closing his eyes again. “Let’s see if I can find Aunt Peggy.”

“Of course it’s ridiculous. We’re _vampires_. Our very existence is the stuff of myths and legends. And some very bad writing.”

He was still for a lot longer, this time, only slight shifts in his expression and the angle of his head hinting that he was awake. “Nng,” he complained. “She’s a lot harder to see. Dimmer? But I think...” He pointed. “Over that way.”

Bucky didn’t even have to close his eyes, Peggy was nearly as bright to him as Tony. “Not bad. The interesting question will be, can you sense Steve, now that you know what you’re looking for? You may have to be very close, since he’s not known to you; unless you’ve been yearning all your life for me, and not known what you were searching for.”

That was romantic twaddle and Bucky fully expected Tony to call him out on it.

Surprisingly, Tony paused, considering it. “I know... I know I spent all the time I could in Europe. Mostly visiting Aunt Peggy. Whenever I could get away with it. I thought that was just... not wanting to be _here_. But maybe there’s something else there, too.” He pondered it for a moment longer, then shrugged. “We may never know.”

“I can’t say I approve of what Howard did,” Bucky said. “He should never-- what he did was wrong. But, without it, I don’t know that I’d be here, that I wouldn’t still be sleeping, perhaps forever.” He shuddered. He didn’t really remember torpor, an endless, nearly dreamless sleep. But to lose his entire existence to some meaningless nothingness? 

Tony reached out and caught Bucky’s hand. “Dad was an ass,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean he didn’t know what he was doing.”

“So many of us,” Bucky said, “this is done to us without… understanding. We don’t know what’s happening, or why. He shouldn’t have used you, like a tool, and not a person. Do you understand?”

“Oh, yeah, I get it. Like I said, Dad was an ass. He didn’t really see any difference between people and machines -- they were just things for him to _fix_, to _make better_.”

Bucky touched Tony’s cheek. “That was shortsighted of him,” he said. “I cannot imagine… a better you. You’re already better than perfect.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “You’re such a romantic,” he chided, but he was blushing, a little, and his smile was bashfully pleased. He leaned into Bucky’s side. “What’s next, then?”

Bucky kissed Tony’s hair. “See if you can feel Steve,” he suggested. “It might be harder, because you don’t know him. And he may be dead, so you wouldn’t feel him at all. But if you can feel something, even the vaguest pull, that might be worth knowing. If not, we’ll look the old fashioned way, but any help would-- well, you already know that.”

Tony nodded and closed his eyes again, leaning against Bucky. “I’m not sure what I’m looking for. I know what you feel like. And Aunt Peggy. But I don’t know anything about Steve. Or even vaguely where to look...” He chewed on his lip, head turning slowly.

He was focused long enough that Bucky wondered if he’d actually fallen asleep -- but then he stirred a little. “There. I think... It’s like a smudge on a camera lens, barely there at all, unless you’re looking for it.” He nodded toward the north.

“It’s something,” Bucky said. “We’ll have to get much closer before it means anything, but it’s something. He’s _alive_.” He couldn’t decide if he was horrified or elated. Steve, alive, after being asleep so long, and mortal, besides. What if what they found was an ancient man, nearly a hundred years old? Would it not be kinder to let him pass on?

Cross that bridge when we come to it, Bucky decided, firmly. For now, find him.

***

Tony pulled his coat a little tighter around himself and stared out over the frigid plains. Technically speaking, he didn’t have to be outdoors for his detection trick to work, but it made him feel better about it.

At least it was getting easier with practice. He focused on Bucky first, the easiest to find. A bright spot just behind his eyelids, like the afterimage of a flash, or the faint ringing in his ears after a really loud concert.

Peggy came next, of course. She was easy to find because they were close together physically. This wasn’t exactly a town; more like a waystation used by scientists and ice fishermen, barely two steps removed from being no more than a _camp_.

Presence established, Tony turned his attention northward. They’d been traveling straight north for several days; any time now, Peggy figured, they’d be close enough that the direction would change, leading them to the place where Steve rested.

Tony found it after a moment’s search -- his link to Steve was tenuous, at best. Steve’s presence felt more like the puff of air from a passing insect, impossible to notice unless you were looking for it. Once Tony had found it, he fumbled in his coat pocket for his compass, eyes still closed as he turned to face it. It _seemed_ to be curving eastward, a little. That was good, right?

“We’re refueled,” Bucky said, coming up behind Tony. He looked ridiculous, bundled up like he actually felt the cold. Something like Han Solo’s coat in Empire Strikes Back, complete with goggles and fur-lined hood. But it was all for appearances; Bucky wasn’t cold. He didn’t need to be protected from the elements. The first time Bucky had displayed such a thing, he’d gone _swimming_ in the icy waters, caught a giant fish down there for Peggy and Tony to grill over a fire. For giggles. And, Tony suspected, to show off a bit.

There weren’t _roads_, and the terrain would be even worse as they went north, so Tony had bought a high tech snowmobile with a heated cab. They had portable cold weather shelters, and Bucky was pretty good at putting them together while Peggy and Tony stayed in their vehicle.

Aside from being god-awful cold, and having to do most of their traveling at night -- which wasn’t so bad because the glare off the ice and snow here was worse than anything Tony had ever encountered on a skiing trip -- it was all right.

Peggy was suffering the cold more than Tony -- Bucky’s blood seemed to afford Tony a slight protection, but it only lasted a day or so after drinking. Bucky was more than happy to top Tony off every so often, but Peggy had refused another dose. Because of course she had.

Tony checked the compass. “We’re getting closer,” he said. “There’s a definite shift in direction today.” He flashed Bucky a quick grin, mostly hidden behind his scarf and parka hood, but he knew Bucky would pick out the crinkle in the corners of his eyes.

Bucky nodded. “Sounds good,” he said. “You’ll be all right for an hour, or two?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Tony said. “We should make progress while we can.”

“I agree,” Bucky said. “Move on forward, I’ll catch up. We’re leaving people behind, and I don’t want to take too much from you. I’m going to go find a bite to eat.”

Tony nodded. He tugged the layers of cloth away from his face and leaned in to kiss Bucky briefly. “Stay safe. I’ll get Aunt Peggy loaded and we’ll set out.”

“I probably don’t need to tell you that I’m the most dangerous thing out here,” Bucky teased. His lips were freezing, but the inside of his mouth was warm, tempting, and he stole another kiss before pulling back.

Bucky pulled his goggles down, gave Tony a quick salute, and practically vanished into the encampment. There weren’t that many people there, a half-dozen or so, but there were rumors that fur trappers still patrolled the woods just before the tundra, and maybe Bucky meant to go have a visit with one of them. Tony didn’t know. And sometimes, Bucky was right -- the less Tony knew about it, the better.

“There’s a compulsion to it,” Peggy said, coming up from the other side, watching as Bucky ran off. “Not to talk about it. A vampire bite. You never knew, back in the SSR, who he was feeding off of. Sometimes the Germans, I expect. We all taste the same.”

“Probably for the best,” Tony agreed. “We all bleed red.” He turned to smile at her. “Why don’t you get in the rig and get the heat going while I tie down our gear?”

Peggy nodded. It took longer to get underway than when Bucky was helping; he could take off his gloves if things got tangled and Tony would rather not, thanks. And at least the nights were pretty long -- headed toward twenty some days of night, Tony thought, remembering several particularly bad horror movies based on that premise. Well, come to think of it, maybe they weren’t that bad. Vampires being slightly less mythical than one might have supposed.

They were trundling across the snow, pointed in the direction that Tony’s inner compass indicated.

Hard to see more than ten feet or so in front of the rig, but it wasn’t like there were school children to worry about running down, either. He needed to keep an eye on the path directly in front of them for uneven surfaces or various wildlife -- he didn’t fancy running into anything that could thrive in this environment. 

A gust of wind blew a scrim of snow across the rig’s windshield. Tony hit the scrapers -- thick, heavy-duty things, meant for pushing aside heavy snow. When it cleared, there was a small mound of dirty snow in the path. It wasn’t big enough to be worth going around and upsetting his sense of direction. “I’m going over it,” Tony told Peggy. “Hang on.” He downshifted the rig and leaned on the gas a bit.

The snow sprayed everywhere as the rig hit it, and then -- The ground disappeared, the rig tipping forward and sideways at once as they fell. Tony shouted. Slammed on the brakes, yanked on the controls, but it was no use. The rig rolled onto its side, dumping Tony out of his seat and onto Peggy. “Fuck!” He struggled to right himself, to look out the window that was now on top, to try to see how far they’d fallen.

There was a lot of nothing, at first. Snow and wind and black sky and white land. He couldn’t even see as far back as the encampment, with its array of lights. 

Inside the cab wasn’t much better; their gear had _mostly _held up to Tony’s tie-downs, but the shelter had come apart and Peggy was half buried in it. She grimaced as she tried to move. “My leg’s--”

A face appeared over the edge of the vehicle and Peggy shut her mouth with a snap, straining to reach something Tony couldn’t quite see. “Well, hello there,” the person said, grinning ear to ear like someone deranged. “Did we have us a little accident?”

Tony squirmed some more, trying to get upright. “Who the hell are you?”

“No one you’d know,” the person said, and then slid into the cab with them. “A fisherman. Looking for exactly the right sort of bait.” They moved, slithering up to Tony, unnaturally quick. “You smell very good, _Bait_. I can see why he likes you.”

“He doesn’t really,” Tony lied, trying now to push back, away from the... whatever they were. Vampire, at least. “I’m just convenient.”

“Yes, that, too,” they said. “James has been very naughty, yes. Very bad. The master wants to speak to him. You come, he follows. Come on.” There was something snake-like, almost hypnotic about the way the creature moved, its formlessness, the way it hissed and swayed. Darkness, given form. Maliciousness given a body and a tongue to speak. “Come on, come this way, Bait, come on.”

Tony shook his head. “I’ll just stay here, I think.”

“Stubborn, foolish mortal,” they said. “Come, and we will leave the girl alive. Deny us again, and she dies.”

“Oh, don’t you worry about me,” Peggy said, her voice deceptively calm. “I’m much more trouble than I’m worth. Anthony, darling, if you don’t mind, could you move just a little bit to the left?” 

“Oh, am I squashing you? Sorry.” Tony didn’t take his eyes off their amorphous intruder as he moved.

Things happened very fast then. Peggy had been slowly and carefully loading a hand-held crossbow, out of sight of their unexpected guest. Where she’d gotten it, Tony didn’t even want to know, but as he flattened himself against the side of the snowmobile, she fired two small, wooden darts at the monster.

Tony leaned back and aimed a kick right at the thing’s center of mass, though there wasn’t enough room for him to really get any good leverage. “Fuck _off!_”

Sprouting wooden darts like some sort of demented pincushion, the creature roared in fury and pain. When Tony kicked out, they grabbed his ankle and with a yank, sent him flying out of the cab and into the snow. Tony recognized the sound of Peggy’s sidearm, even over the howling wind and the screaming vamp, and then--

The creature crawled out of the cab, bloody, but less wounded than Tony could have hoped. 

Tony tried to scramble away, to climb to his feet and run, but he’d taken his gloves off in the heated vehicle and the bitter cold was already sapping the feeling from his hands. He stumbled upright and staggered away from the thing.

“Oh, no _Anthony darling_,” the thing said, voice a crooning mockery of Aunt Peggy’s. “We’re not done with you, little morsel.” It slid one arm around Tony’s waist, hefting him as if he weighed no more than a toddler. When Tony struggled, trying to gouge an eyeball, strangle it, _something_, the thing slammed him against the ground, full force, knocking his lungs breathless. A clawed hand circled Tony’s throat. 

“Must be careful, don’t kill it,” the creature said, as if reminding itself.

He couldn’t breathe.

He flailed, clawed at the thing’s arm, but it was immovable as stone. He kicked, writhed, anything he could manage, but it just taunted him. He tried to yell, even knowing it was futile, that there was no one and nothing close enough to hear him -- but no sound emerged, anyway.

Was the thing turning gray and fuzzy, or was Tony’s vision fading out with the lack of oxygen? He made one more attempt, weak and useless, and then everything went dark.


	10. Chapter 10

If Bucky had a heart to beat faster, his would have been racing the instant he saw the wrecked snowmobile. He practically leaped onto it; the windows were blocked up with panels from the shelter and the engine was still turning sluggishly, keeping the cab warm. There was only one silhouette inside.

But when he reached the door, he stopped, sniffed.

Blood.

And not Tony’s, or Peggy’s, but… he snarled, not even recognizing the sound that came out of his throat as a name, except--

“Who’s Rumlow?” Peggy asked, her voice a weak, but annoyed croak from inside the vehicle. “And either come in or stay out, it took long enough to get it warm in here.”

Well, thank fuck, Peggy was alive. Which meant Rumlow was following orders and not just rampaging for the sake of doing so. Not that Bucky would have put it past that bastard to kill for the sheer joy of it, but if he was going to, he would have killed Peggy.

So, they'd taken Tony for a reason.

“How long ago?” Bucky demanded. There wasn’t much in the way of mortal settlements around the area, but if Rumlow had too much of a head start, he could have gotten Tony to a vehicle, handed him off to ghouls or blood dolls, to take him where Bucky couldn’t follow because of sunlight and time.

“Not too long, I don’t think,” Peggy said. He glanced at her; her face was bruised and there was blood, tacky and drying, against her head. “I might have got dizzy for a bit, but I had to seal up the cab. Couldn’t have taken too long, or I wouldn’t be here to tell you about it.”

Bucky wanted to howl, to race off after Tony, to-- anything, do something, get him back, all his nerves were screaming at him.

He took a breath that he didn’t need, sat down inside the makeshift shelter. “You did good, here,” he said, light praise. Calming himself. There might not be time, but nothing would be gained if he pursued Tony and left Peggy to fend for herself. Closed his eyes and _searched_.

Tony, bright as gold against the backdrop of Bucky’s mind, with that dark shine on it that indicated _injured_. Rumlow, dark and malevolent. A few smudgy forms off of Rumlow, ghouls, maybe. Rumlow liked having followers. He used to keep a pack of wolves, at one point, fed vampire blood and slavishly loyal.

There was nothing to indicate Bucky’s and Rumlow’s sire, or any of the other brothers or sisters in the nearby vicinity. Unless their sire had learned some new tricks, which, Bucky wouldn’t put it past him. 

But no one was waiting in ambush, no one was nearby, waiting to slaughter Peggy if Bucky went after Tony. Well, no one vampiric, at any rate.

Peggy could probably handle a few mortals, though. She was tough.

Getting the snowmobile out of the hole was probably a good idea; they didn’t want to be stuck here when Bucky came back, in case there was pursuit. And he might need the shelter, depending how long it took.

“Hold on tight,” Bucky told her, and he slipped out the door again, closing it behind him and sealing the heat inside.

He would have to burn some of his precious blood, to gain the strength he needed to push the vehicle out of the hole, but he’d have to do that sooner or later. His fangs descended and he snarled at the night, furious that this had happened, terribly worried about Tony.

He used the fear, the uncertainty, to fuel his body. Lifted and pushed at unyielding metal, nearly a thousand pounds of it, plus gear and one irate English woman. Muscles flexed, tore, healed. Bones creaked, and splintered and healed as he shoved. It hurt, but it was the kind of pain that was over so fast he could barely remember it once it passed.

Finally, the snowmobile was back on solid ground, right side up, and, from what Bucky could see, relatively undamaged. That was good. He spoke right next to the window, not wanting to let any more of Peggy’s precious heat out. “If it’s close to dawn, make sure there’s a dark spot for me. We’ll likely be in a hurry.”

Whatever noises she made from inside, Bucky chose to interpret them as affirmatives. With that, he raced off, following the trail that was more in his head than a scent on the ground, racing across the snow.

_I’m coming, Tony._

***

The vampire was, when Tony woke up, more normal-looking. Or at least, mostly human-looking, and not some unidentifiable monster like he’d been, out in the snow. Tall, dark, handsome. The sort of guy that Tony might have accepted a drink from in a bar, a few years back. Although when he noticed Tony was awake and looking at him, the way he smirked made Tony reconsider, wondering if that nail polish that detected roofies actually worked. The guy looked the sort of asshole to spike someone’s beer.

“Morning, sunshine,” the vampire said, twisting into a squat to look at Tony, dark eyes gleaming avidly.

Tony’s throat hurt, both the inside and the outside, and he had a hell of a headache. “Go take a sunbath,” he growled.

“You’re cute,” the vampire said. “It’s also about fifteen miles to the nearest shelter, and--” he jerked his chin toward a pile of cloth and leather, “I took the liberty of removing your shoes. And your coat. You’re going to be here for a while, thought you should be comfortable.” 

There were a few kerosene heaters that were keeping the small cave warm, and a thick tarp of insulated plastic over the cave’s mouth. Other than that, the place wasn’t much. A stone hole in the ground, gently sloped, with a few boulders, and a pile of old bones. Some predator’s den, at some point in the distant past, maybe.

“You are so, so dead,” Tony said. “What the fuck is _wrong_ with you people?” 

“Well, yes, I’m dead,” the vampire said, smirking. “It’s what we do. And I’m not the one who broke the rules, so if you want to lay blame, you can put it all on my wayward brother. I’m just… sending him a little invitation. He comes here, he’s reasonable, and you two can be on your way with my apologies.”

“Why do I doubt that?” Tony looked around the cave again. “You got anything to eat in here? For people?”

The vampire got up, tugged what looked like one of those reusable grocery bags out from behind a rock. He tossed the whole thing at Tony with the air of someone who had no idea what food was, or how to prepare it. There were two jars of peanut butter, a package of hamburger buns, a can of spray whipped cream, a six pack of energy drinks, and a dozen or more candy bars, along with a handful of change and several twenty dollar bills. 

“This is... Less useless than I was expecting,” Tony admitted. “I ate worse in college.” He cracked one of the energy drinks and drank half of it in a series of gulps, then opened a jar of peanut butter. There were, of course, no utensils in the bag, so he used the heavy foil safety seal to spoon some of it out onto one of the hamburger buns. He took a bite. Without bothering to swallow first, he said, “You wan’ some? Little sticky, but ‘s not bad.”

The vampire gave him that little smirk again, like Tony was a particularly clever dog. Funny, cute, but not like a person. Farmer Jim’s son with his pet chicken, or something. “Hard to remember to think about these things,” he said. “I don’t usually keep a steady food source. There’s always new people to take a bite from. It’s not our family’s intention to do you any more harm than necessary. Food. Heat. Water. Shelter. You’ll be fine. All I want is to talk with James.”

“Yeah, I can tell how honorable your intentions are,” Tony said, but he honestly wasn’t sure if the vampire knew he was being sarcastic. “You got a name, or should I just keep calling you _that asshole_ in my head?”

The vampire opened one eye, rolled it. “It’s Rumlow,” he said. “Now shut up, I’m keeping an eye on James.”

Tony shrugged and closed his own eyes, looking for the bright spot that was Bucky. _I’m here, it’s a trap, be careful_, he thought at it. He had no idea if Bucky could hear him or pick up any of his thoughts, but it didn’t hurt to try, did it?

He finished his sandwich and the energy drink. Pulled out the can of whipped cream and considered doing whippets just for old times’ sake, but he probably did not want to be at all high for any of what was going to happen.

The best thing he could do, he decided, was try to distract Rumlow so he wouldn’t be completely ready for Bucky’s arrival.

He watched Bucky getting closer for a little bit, then squirted some whipped cream into his mouth, letting the can sputter and fizzle. “What kind of name is Rumlow, anyway?” he wondered idly. “Sounds whiny. _Not enough rum in this piña colada_.”

Without opening his eyes, Rumlow scoffed. “What, you don’t like it? My mother gave me that name. I don’t know, human names. Do they even matter? Does it matter what you call yourselves? I was thinking something… gritty. Tougher, maybe. Crossbones. Now that’s a good name.”

“...Yeah, that’s a great name,” Tony said. “Doesn’t sound _at all_ like the kind of name a fourteen-year-old gamer would pick for a MMORPG.”

Rumlow opened both eyes that time, rolling them. “I hate this century,” he said. “Do you always talk this much, or are you just flirting?”

“I always talk this much,” Tony said. “Trust me, babycakes, if I start flirting, you’ll know.”

“My lucky day,” Rumlow said. “Next time, I’ll leave the volunteering to Jack. Boss thought he might be a little rough on you. Likes to play with his food, Jackie-boy does. Aaaah, there we go, I was wondering if he was going to circle around out there all night.”

Tony flipped the can of whipped cream in his hand, idly. “You could always go out after him,” he suggested.

Rumlow glared at him, eyes a faint shimmer, like a cat’s under a flashlight glare. “I could kill you and still deliver my message. Do you _ever _stop talking?”

Whatever Tony was about to say was interrupted by it suddenly going cold and dark in the cavern. Well, not that it wasn’t cold before, but all the lights went out, and the darkness was positively unrelenting, like a force or life all on its own. 

There was just the faintest sound, and Tony had no idea what was making it. The only thing he could hear, aside from that one, single scrape, like a feather over a rock, was his own harsh breathing.

He tightened his grip on the can of whipped cream. It wasn’t much, but it was sturdy metal, and he could probably spray it into Rumlow’s face as a distraction. He backed up against the cold wall and tried to focus, to concentrate. To listen. To feel Bucky’s presence.

Whatever was happening in the dark, it was fast and it was relentless. Tony got a sense of Bucky, like a glowing ball of reddish light, practically _racing _around the little cavern. He felt the movement of air around him, and then, for a terrifying instant, he was lifted and _moved _and he almost attacked before he realized the hand on his back and the other at his knee were gentle, firm, and familiar.

“Stay here,” a rough voice told him, thick and hoarse with rage. And then he was gone again.

“I can--” But Bucky wasn’t there for Tony to help. Frustrated, he rose up into a crouch, trying to peer through the darkness, to get a sense of what was happening.

More struggling, just beyond Tony’s reach, grunts of effort, hisses and snaps and then once, a groan of pain. Then-- snarling, like nothing Tony had heard before outside of a nature documentary.

“Tony, Tony, look out!”

It was still too dark to see. Tony flailed wildly. There was a sudden glimmer, the faintest hint of red glow, and he swung in that direction. A snarl, entirely _too close_ and then the can of whipped cream was wrenched out of his hand, and then _exploded_, shockingly loud in the small space, spraying Tony with sweet cream.

The-- whatever it was that had been Rumlow at once point, yipped, howled, and then choked, spluttering. There was a ripping, rending sound, and then--

“_Fuck_,” Bucky said, sounding exhausted. “Tony, my love? Are you hurt?” Bucky was breathing hard, which seemed odd, given that he didn’t usually need to breathe at all, but-- maybe fighting drew on those more human instincts.

“I’m fine,” Tony said. “Cold, but I’m not hurt. Are _you_?” He scooted forward from where Bucky had put him, reaching out for the vampire.

“Little bit,” Bucky admitted. “When did _Brock Rumlow_ of all vampires, learn to shapeshift?” There were a few muffled sounds, and then Bucky bumped something against Tony’s arm. “Here, I think that’s a flashlight. I’m looking for the rest of it. It’s as dark as an old boot in here.”

Tony fumbled a little and found the switch to turn the flashlight on. The floor in front of him was covered with cream, smeared and stained with red toward one side. “Did you kill him?” Tony swung the light from side to side, searching for his shoes and his coat.

“Uh, I think you did, if you want to be precise about it-- or that thing you were holding.” Bucky squinted, then grabbed a bit of what looked like an unfolded tent, or canvas drop cloth or something. “Don’t. Here, you don’t need to look at that.” He spread it out over the body, part wolf, part vampire, coated in blood and cream and sugar.

“Wasn’t planning on a close examination. Biology isn’t my field.” Tony couldn’t resist one curious glance, though, as he stepped past the body to recover his boots. “Good to know that a metal container of pressurized gas is almost as dangerous for vampires as for people, I guess.”

“There are a couple of ways we can be killed and make it stick,” Bucky said, nudging the corpse. “We’re going to want to burn this, just to make sure.” Bucky paused, then, “Did he say what he wanted? I realize this was a trap, for me, but-- he must have wanted something, otherwise he would have just killed you outright.”

“He _said_ he just wanted to talk to you,” Tony said. “I’m sure you can guess how believable that was. He was taking his orders from someone else, though.”

“Zola, probably,” Bucky said. “Our mutual sire. Or whoever Zola’s favorite lapdog is right now. Zola doesn’t personally like getting his hands dirty. He doesn’t even hunt, has one of his lackeys bring him food.”

Tony shrugged as he shook out his coat. “He didn’t say a name, just _boss_. Threatened me with some guy named Jack, but I got the impression that was just another errand-boy.” He pulled the coat on. “Is Aunt Peggy okay?”

“She’s fine,” Bucky said. “Little mad at me that she’s got a broken leg, and won’t let me fix it. She’s going to be more mad when I gotta go eat again soon. Fighting with another vampire burns through blood like you stabbed me.” He dragged a few things over to where the body was -- burnable things, Tony thought. “Oh, hey, what’s this?” He held up a one of those bead chains that people wore as necklaces, shiny and silver, and-- there was a thumb drive dangling off the end of it, like where a locket or dog tags might have been. 

Tony reached out and caught it, tipping it back and forth in the dim light, trying to find any markings. “Information,” he said. “Maybe. Or a virus. We’ll want to get our hands on a non-networked machine when we fire it up.”

“I’ll just pretend that meant something,” Bucky said, giving Tony a little half-lopsided smirk. “Wouldn’t surprise me if Zola sent Rumlow to me as a way to get rid of him, but I can’t figure how Zola even knew I was awake. You can’t find something if you’re not looking for it. Why would he bother to look for me, now? I’ve been gone for seventy years.”

“Maybe he knows something about where your friend Steve went down and it triggered an alert when we bought the gear,” Tony suggested. “I dunno how modernized this guy’s likely to be.”

“He might be keeping an eye out,” Bucky said, tilting his head to one side. “Red Plague, you know. He was in on developing it. Us finding that ship. That would be the jackpot to him. We’ll want to destroy that, too. He may or may not be modernized, but Zola had a lot of-- what did you call it? _Renfields_?”

Tony shot Bucky an unimpressed look. “_Dracula_ predates you,” he pointed out. “The book, if not the movie.”

“Still. We don’t call them that. Blood slaves, really. Human, but only barely. He hurts them, and then he heals them, over and over until they’re both insane and insanely loyal. Sometimes… sometimes they die, and they become one of his childer.”

“Well, that sounds... awful.” Tony shuddered. “Well, here’s hoping he’s not too upset about losing Crossbones, there. Maybe he’ll just... leave us alone.” He tucked the thumb drive into his pocket for later examination. “You need a drink to get us back to the rig?”

Bucky reached out, touched Tony’s face very lightly, brushing his knuckles over Tony’s cheekbone with tenderness. “It was. Awful, I mean.” He nodded. “Yeah, if you’re not too tapped out. I’ll take a few sips, set this asshole on fire, and then run you back to the camp. Can’t waste time, you’ll freeze if we’re too long out there. How the hell did Brock get you all the way out here? Nevermind, not important. The important thing is, I’ve got you back, and I’m not going to let this happen again.”

“We’ll be extra careful,” Tony promised. He unzipped his coat a little and tugged his collar aside to expose his throat. “Here, have a little pick-me-up. Remind me to eat an extra protein bar when we stop for dinner.”

Bucky cupped Tony’s face, kissed his mouth, not with passion, but with relief, and then nuzzled his way down to Tony’s throat. The bite was a zing of electric pain, rapidly drawn away into pleasure, until Bucky was holding him up as he swooned a bit, the strength going out of his knees.

Bucky licked his neck, closing the wounds. “You okay?”

“Mm.” Tony leaned against Bucky for a moment, letting that sizzle of pleasure crackle through his veins. “I’m great.” He forced himself upright, careful not to reveal the still-wobbly feeling in his legs. Probably shouldn’t let Bucky feed on him any more for a couple of days. But Bucky was going to carry him back, so it would be fine. “Feeling better?”

“Yeah,” Bucky said. “I’m so sorry. I’ll, I don’t know, is the Red Cross still a thing? Maybe I’ll steal a few bags of donor blood. Try to keep us all going for a while. Until we can get to Steve, and see what he’s going to need.”

“Yeah, if your old boss is going to be chasing us, we’ll want some emergency stuff on hand, anyway,” Tony agreed. “Maybe we should sit down and make a list.”


	11. Chapter 11

Bucky loped ahead of the rumbling snowmobile. He had to get at least a half mile out before the low grumble of the motor was faded and let him use his ears for something other than keeping his brain inside. 

Shapeshifting wasn’t the easiest thing in the world, but Tony had flashed a fancy card at one of the local hospitals, bought them something called an MRI, and was given -- off the books -- several plastic packets of donor blood, in addition to an excessive amount of gratitude. So, they had blood to spare. 

To make the story plausible, the bags were in Peggy and Tony’s blood-types. In case of an accident. Well, yes, Bucky thought, but didn’t bother to comment.

With the spare blood and less danger of accidentally vampirizing his companions, Bucky had energy to spare.

And running as a wolf, while unusual, had some distinct advantages. He could move across the terrain easily, and had a sense about where the ground might be unstable. He could hear and smell an enemy coming from quite a ways out.

And, Tony had said, “Your fur’s all warm and soft!” and then promptly buried his face in it. Which meant that Bucky lingered a little longer after the sun went down than he’d meant to, but what was he supposed to do when his lover was so clingy?

Peggy had finally shooed him out, and Tony gave him the direction.

He could feel them, warm and comfortable, in the back of his mind, keeping watch ahead, and checking their location. It was a little lonely, but at the same time exhilarating, being the only creature on the snowy tundra. They were getting close, he thought. Not because he had any sense of Steve, but because there was so much hollow space under them. Soon, he thought, they’d be above water, which would be the only place the Valkyrie could have rested so long and not been spotted.

When his internal clock told him the night was half over, he circled back ‘round to regroup with his pack-- Bucky shook his enormous, furred head. Thinking like the shape he was in was hard to avoid. 

His coat was thick with snow by the time he made his way back. He found a spot to sit where he’d be right in the path of their headlights and waited for them to stop.

The snowmobile was loud and smelled bad, even more to his wolf-senses than when he was in a man’s shape. But he could feel Tony and Peggy inside it, and it rumbled to a halt, the engine growling softly. A moment later, the hatch opened and there was Tony, bundled up warm, holding a towel. “Come on, before all the heat escapes.”

He shook off as best he could before leaping into the hole. The less snow he could track in, the happier everyone was going to be. 

Tony wrapped the towel over his back as the hatch closed behind them, rubbing off the rest of the snow and ice. Bucky didn’t feel the cold the way a living creature would, but the towel had been heated, and that felt nice. “Find anything interesting? Or worrisome?”

Bucky resisted the urge to shake again, and then let himself slide into his human self, which ended up with Tony’s hands in his hair and the towel falling around his shoulders. “I think we’re close. There’s a lot of water under the ice, about three feet down, maybe further. And not a damn thing out here aside from us in at least thirty miles, unless it’s deader than I am.”

“That probably shouldn’t be comforting, but it kind of is.” Tony reached into a tiny cupboard and pulled out a blanket -- also heated. He draped it over Bucky’s shoulders, taking the damp towel away. “Last time I checked, we were closing in. He hasn’t changed direction in a while, so we must be heading the right way.” They’d spent a day or so zig-zagging every couple of hours as Tony checked that inner compass.

Bucky nodded. “After today, I’ll start looking for a way down. If you get a good enough bearing, I can probably swim down and drag him up. No need to expose anyone to the Red Plague. If he’s even anywhere near it and didn’t, I don’t know, jump out of the plane or something smart.”

Peggy gave him that Look of hers. “You know Steve, darling.”

“Yeah,” Bucky said, a little huff of a laugh escaping. Steve was a lot of things -- brave and strong and loyal and honest to a fault -- but he wasn’t always smart. Particularly when it came to self-preservation.

“He missed you,” Peggy told him. “More than you know.”

“I’m sure it’ll be one big happy reunion,” Tony said, fidgeting with the pen he’d been using to mark their progress on the map. “What I want to know is, _then_ what?”

“By the very nature of our existence,” Peggy said, matter-of-fact, “we will attract trouble. During the War, our Commando unit was… in much demand. I daresay there is much we could do, for the greater good, if we wanted. Or, perhaps, I’ll make you find me a dancehall and a band, and finally have a proper partner.”

“She means me,” Tony told Bucky. “In case you were wondering. Three years of dance lessons, that she not only insisted on, but paid for, when my dad grumbled about it.”

“Howard was sometimes a rather complete ass,” Peggy sniffed. “He neglected many things that were of importance. I couldn’t have him being the only influence in your life.”

“No parts missing!” Tony said cheerfully. “But now I see it was all part of your nefarious plot.” He kissed Bucky’s cheek as he maneuvered past to recover his pilot’s seat. “Are we making camp here, or pushing onward?”

“Let’s try 'n get right up on top of him before morning,” Bucky suggested. “Then we’ll have all night tomorrow to dig his ass up.”

“And the rest of him, too,” Peggy said.

Bucky shifted around so he was sitting next to Tony on the front bench, Peggy was curled up warm and cozy in the back. In a few hours, they’d have to set up the specialized tents and living pods with sunblocking panels. It wasn’t quite the right time of year for a month worth of nights, so they had a few hours of daylight that he had to be wary of. 

Tony’s competence with their vehicle was oddly entrancing, watching him flick his gaze between the snowy landscape, the sensors and monitors, and tracking his internal homing beacon. Bucky understood, a little, how some of the oldest vampires he’d met would get completely lost, fascinated, just watching someone. Everything Tony touched seemed to sparkle, and there was so much life in him.

Bucky laughed softly. _Sap_, he accused himself. “I have thought of one task,” he said. “Once we’re secure and together. We should put some effort into eliminating my sire. A precaution, as he obviously wants to get rid of me, first.” _Or put me back to work as his lackey and pet murderer._

“Yeah? I can’t say I’d be sorry for that, after what his stooge did to us.” Tony frowned. “Killing him won’t hurt _you_, will it?”

Bucky hummed thoughtfully. “Yes, and no,” he said, finally. “It depends, I suppose, how we go about it. Traditionally, conflict between sire and child is decided by battle and draining of the heart’s blood. If we can manage that, I’ll become much stronger, taking his power and adding it to my own. If we have to, say, cut his head off and burn the body? It… might diminish me, somewhat. I don’t know. I’ve never met anyone who’s managed the trick of outliving a sire that wanted them dead.”

“Well, we can be the first, then,” Tony said. He considered. “Any vampiric siblings who might hate him enough to ally with us?”

“Many siblings. We might attempt to gather allies, or at least, cut down a number of his,” Bucky said, closing his eyes, trying not to think of Natasha, who might or might not stand with him. 

“Well, we’ll figure that out after we’ve got this Steve guy in hand. I expect he’ll have something useful to say.” Tony slowed the vehicle, frowning in concentration. “We’re almost there,” he said. “Another fifty feet and I think we’d have to turn back again.”

“Let’s stop here then, and you can walk me over to the exact spot,” Bucky suggested. “Don’t want to risk dropping the snowmobile in a hole or anything. We’ll need it to get back.”

“And I’ll just start setting up camp, then,” Peggy suggested, practical as always.

Tony zipped and snapped and tied himself into his various cold-weather gear, then climbed out onto the ice. He reached back for Bucky’s hand, though it was surprising he could even feel Bucky’s grip through all the padding. “You sure you’ll be okay, diving down in that?”

“Probably? I’ve never tried it before,” Bucky admitted. “I’ll top off on blood, as much as I can hold. And-- Tony, I won’t push. If I think it’s too dangerous, I’ll come back. I promise, I’m not going to leave you.”

“You’d better mean it,” Tony said, his voice unsteady. “We’ll find another way, if we have to. Icebreaker ships and explorers or something.”

“I mean it,” Bucky said. He wanted to cup Tony’s cheek, but didn’t want to expose his skin to those temperatures. “Steve wouldn’t want me to risk-- my existence, my happiness-- for his.”

Tony opened his mouth to say something -- because it was Tony, and he was _always_ saying something -- but he stopped, quite suddenly. His face pulled into a frown behind the goggles he wore to protect his eyes. “I think this is it. This is... I can’t get any closer.” He turned around, looking at the ice and snow, and then nodded in the direction of a crevice, some twenty feet away. “That’s probably your best bet.”

“All right, my love,” Bucky said. “I’ll start there, tomorrow night. Come, let’s get some rest.”

***

“It’s cold enough out here, even I can feel it,” Bucky said. He’d stripped down to a set of zip-up scuba gear, and Tony wasn’t even going to think about how unpleasant that would be. Well, not for Tony. Even souped up on vampire blood, he’d be dead before he could get that uncomfortable. Bucky was, by all clinical definitions, already dead.

Tony fixed him with a stern look. “No unnecessary risks.” He closed his eyes, concentrated, pointed toward the faint glow that was Steve, nearly overwhelmed by the bright sparks of Bucky and Peggy. “That way. Doesn’t feel like he’s moved since last night, so hopefully it won’t it take you long to find him.”

“I’ll be back before you can miss me,” Bucky promised. He grabbed their underwater lamp from its position in the snow, and took it with him, easing down into the cave, toward the underwater sea, the endless cold and dark, and hopefully, Steve Rogers.

It didn’t take very long before even the faintest spark of the lantern was gone.

“He’ll do it,” Tony said, and if he was reassuring himself as much as Peggy, well, that was okay.

“I’m certain he will, darling. Come back to the shelter where it’s warmer. Staring at that hole in the ice isn’t going to make him get back any faster,” Peggy said. “My _eyelashes _are frozen.”

Tony stared into the dark water, ice crystals floating on the surface. “What if he needs help?”

“If you get wet, Anthony, you become just as much of a risk as assistance,” Peggy said. “Come, at least stay warm for a bit. I promise, you can come out and brood in front of the ice every twenty minutes. I waited… seventy years for Steve to come home. I can wait a little longer.”

Tony sighed. “I hate it when you’re right.” He reluctantly turned and followed Peggy into the shelter. He couldn’t seem to sit and relax, though, too keyed up. He double-checked their food stores, their supply of blood for Bucky, that they had blankets and chemical warming packs for Steve, if he needed them. Towels.

“Vampires, and their kin,” Peggy said. “Creatures of mythology, legend, and yet-- here are both our lives, inexplicably woven together with them. So many years, and I never stopped loving him, not for a single instant in a single day.” She eyed Tony sharply. “You remind me… of me.”

“High praise, indeed,” Tony said, grinning. “Even Dad would’ve said so.”

"Howard was an idiot. He spent so much time searching for what he'd lost, he didn't see what was right in front of him, the whole time." She flicked a few drops of melting snow off the fringe around Tony's hood. "James is good for you. I'm glad you found each other."

“Even though you were ready to stake him when I first brought him to you?” Tony teased. “It’s almost enough to make me grateful for being nearly caught in an avalanche.”

“I’ve met dozens of vampires and their kin,” Peggy said. “James is the only one I’d wish to see again. I just never thought that I would. I thought I’d left all that behind me. There’s a small part of me that still wants to be angry about this -- look at me! Do I look ninety three? No, no I don’t! But I have all the life experiences and knowledge. It’s like… my head and heart are too full.”

“I think it’s great,” Tony said. “The world could use someone like you, a little longer. And I expect this Steve guy is going to need your help.”

“The day Steve Rogers admits to needing anyone’s help,” Peggy started, and then there was movement, outside in the snow, a dark shadow moving slowly. “Ducky-- I think your boyfriend is back.”

Tony whirled around and dove through the shelter opening. “Bucky?!”

“Forget wh’ a habit--” Bucky said, panting through each syllable, dragging what honestly looked like a badly dented high school locker behind him, “--breathing is, until I gotta _not_ for a while.” He coughed, spluttered and coughed again. “Got frozen damn salt water in my lungs.” 

Tony rushed forward to help with Bucky’s load. “That sounds very unpleasant,” he agreed. “Let’s get inside, and it can at least be liquid salt water. Did you find him? Is this--” Tony looked down at what they were carrying.

“Yeah. He’s stuck in it-- I didn’t want,” Bucky coughed again, then pushed Tony aside roughly to vomit up several mouthfuls of seawater, stained pinkish from being inside Bucky’s chest. “Ug, gross.”

“Well, at least you did that before we got all the way inside.” Tony watched Bucky closely, somewhat worried but unwilling to admit it. “How was it down there? Run into any trouble?”

“It was cold and dark as fuck, and cold,” Bucky said. “There’s a goddamn ship full of bombs down there. Chem-dispersers.” He rubbed his arms and then finished dragging the Steve-cicle to the shelter. “Let’s leave him in the front access for a bit, he’s frozen through. Literally. I don’t think warming him up quickly will do him any favors.”

“How do you even know--” Peggy said, yanking her goggles down as she came outside, “--that we _can_ warm him up?” She reached for the locker’s door and opened it, staring into the ice there, a man wearing a blue uniform, skin as white as snow, hair as blond as wheat. “Oh, Steve.”

“We don’t,” Tony said matter-of-factly. “But he’s still alive, somehow, because I can sense him. So it’s got to be better to try than leave him down there, right?” The shelter’s front access was something of an airlock, and it was only barely warmer than freezing in there. “But it makes sense. We’ll leave him in there and let him come up to temperature slow enough to keep ice crystals from forming anywhere important. Like his lungs.” He glanced at Bucky with a small smile. _Or his brain,_ Tony thought, but didn’t say aloud.

“Next time,” Bucky said, “someone else gets to go. That was jus’ about the least fun thing I ever done. Like swimmin’ through hell. Couldn’t see more’n two feet in front of my face, and it was… _slushy_. Almost like mud, somehow. He musta been busted up pretty bad in the crash, I can’t imagine jus’ staying down there and letting himself drown.” Bucky grabbed one of the towels and started blotting his hair dry. “Didn’t see any sign of the Red Skull… but I did get this.” He reached into the locker and pulled out a metal shield, painted like a damn bullseye, with a star in the center.

“What the hell is that?” Tony wondered. It looked like something out of a comic book.

“Oh,” Peggy said, softly, and when Tony glanced at her, her eyes were filled with tears. “It’s a shield. Captain America’s shield. Your father made it. It’s vibranium. As a weapon, it’s good against werewolves and vampires, bulletproof, impact resistant.”

Bucky snorted. “The bulletproof thing, very important. Steve told me you emptied a revolver at him once.”

“Yes, well, he shouldn’t have been kissing that floozy.”

“This sounds like a story I need to hear,” Tony said, chuckling. He threw a blood bag into the microwave to heat up for Bucky. “Here, this should help you thaw out some.”

“Steve wasn’t never anything like smooth,” Bucky said. He peeled out of the wetsuit, and Peggy turned around delicately, facing away. There really wasn’t enough room in the shelter for Bucky to change in their sleeping cells. “An’ this dame just sort of… crawled up him like he was a tree. Peggy was just marking her territory.”

Tony laughed. “Sure.” He most emphatically did _not_ look away as Bucky stripped out of his wet clothes. They didn’t have any privacy out here, not with Peggy along, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t _look_.

There was a raw scrape along his back and elbows, healing sluggishly and a spectacularly nasty bruise on the opposite thigh. Bucky craned his neck around trying to look. “Well, not too bad.” And then his nostrils flared. “Oh, that smells _good_. The cooker, that’s the most convenient thing--”

Peggy handed Bucky a towel without looking at him. “Do you think he knows,” she said, her voice cracking, “that we’re here? That we’ve saved him?”

“I kinda hope not,” Bucky said. “If he’s aware _now_, like that--” He shuddered. Without much modesty, Bucky yanked on a pair of sweatpants. Too bad. Peep show all done.

“Yeah,” Tony agreed. “Time enough for him to be grateful after we’ve warmed him up first.” He handed the heated blood bag off to Bucky.

“I’m going to sit with him,” Peggy declared, buttoning herself back into her coat. “Just in case. I don’t-- I don’t want him to be alone, if he is aware of anything.”

Bucky tore a corner off the bag and squeezed, like he was eating the world’s most A-positive Capri Sun. “It still tastes a little off,” he complained after a few swallows. “Like, I don’t know. Decaf, maybe.”

Tony grimaced. “I know,” he sympathized. “As soon as we’re back in civilization, you can have the real deal again.”

With a swirl of colder air, Peggy was out into the little airlock, staring at a man who was more ice than human. Or maybe never really human at all.

“He’s alive,” Bucky murmured, low. “We’ll just have to wait and see. I can probably heal anything that’s physically wrong--”

“We’ll figure it out, whatever happens,” Tony said. “No matter what.”

Bucky gave the blood bag a final squeeze, grimaced, and then licked the last few drops of blood off his lip. The bruising on his back and thigh was already fading. “Come ‘ere,” he invited. “I know I promised I wouldn’t do anythin’ stupid, but I gotta say, I was a little worried, for a bit.” He tugged Tony into an embrace, nosing through his hair and brushing still-cold fingers over Tony’s cheek and jaw.

Tony shivered at the cold touch but clung to Bucky tightly, pushing his face into Bucky’s neck and surrounding himself with the sweet-salty scent of Bucky’s skin. “I might have been a little worried, too.”

“I promised I’d come back to you, love,” Bucky said. “I meant t’ keep that much, stupid or not. Couldn’t… couldn’t bear t’ not see you again.” His fingers threaded through Tony’s hair. “Is it weird to say I’m exhausted? Ain’t like I sleep, not… not really, not like humans sleep, but I would love a bit of a lie down with you.”

Tony nodded. “Yeah, that sounds really great. Aunt Peggy will let us know if anything changes. And in the meantime, we can... rest.”


	12. Chapter 12

Two nights later and they decided to risk moving Steve back with them-- he was thawing slowly, but showing no signs of rousing. A warm, safe place would be welcome, and not just for Steve. Peggy refused to leave his side, and Bucky was starting to worry that she’d wear herself out, or freeze.

Not to mention the fact that Bucky was more than a little nervous with nothing more solid than a specialized tent between him and sunlight. They wouldn’t be able to get all the way back to Tony’s safe home in New York, but a nice, well-heated warehouse in Greenland wasn’t above the scope of possibilities.

Traveling back to the small outpost where their ship was waiting was easier than searching for Steve, a straight pass back to where they were going.

And truth be told, Tony was just as eager as the others to get back to civilization. He wanted a decent cup of coffee, and a meal that hadn’t been rehydrated. And a bedroom with a door that locked. These did not seem like extravagant desires.

Luckily, Tony knew a thing or two about engines. He was able to soup the rig up a bit, make it run a little more efficiently. A little faster.

A night, a day, and another night, and they were unloading Steve into a hospital bed, and Bucky disappeared for an hour or so to go hunting. Peggy got Fury on the phone, and he flew up one of the best doctors on SHIELD’s staff. Might not necessarily be the best doctor in the world, but one with adequate clearance, at least, to see a half-vampire superhuman ice cube and be expected not to talk about it.

Bucky had some rather particular ideas about making Steve’s recovery room comfortable. By which he apparently meant _antiquated_. Old fashioned bed, and lights -- _it’s always so bright,_ Bucky complained -- and clothing. 

“He’s gonna be freaked out when he wakes up,” Bucky said. “Let’s not make him think he’s been kidnapped by aliens or anything.”

Tony paused for a moment as he set up the “radio” that would play some recordings from Steve’s youth, familiar music and events. “Is that a thing? Are aliens real?”

Bucky started to shrug, but stopped to stare when Peggy said, “Quite. At least two different species that have personally sent emissaries. What? You’ve got clearance for that information, James.” 

“Wait, seriously? And you’ve never _told me?_” Tony put on his best pout. “You have to tell me all about it! Are they little green men from Mars? _War of the Worlds_ striders?”

“Asgardians look like us, they’re just… more,” Peggy said. “Whatever you can think of, they’re more of it. Older, wiser, taller, wider. _Louder_.”

“I ain’t met anyone who was from space,” Bucky said.

“Well, I have only met the one,” Peggy said. “And read the files. And until last month, darling, you didn’t have clearance for that. I’m not sure you do now, to be honest, but since you know about vampires, it can’t hurt anything for you to know about aliens.”

“Are you sure the guy was really an alien? Aliens who look just like us, that’s... that’s _Star Trek_ cheap-ass special effects budgeting, there. The odds are so astronomically against it, it’s not even funny.” Tony finished hooking up the radio-player and turned it on. It would play in six-hour loops, more or less, at least until Tony managed to get a satellite connection strong enough to download more material.

“I didn’t personally visit his homeworld,” Peggy sniffed. “But he did not, in fact, seem particularly _human_, either.”

“Namor wasn’t human,” Bucky pointed out, pulling the scratchy wool blanket up to Steve’s chest. “But he is from earth. ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’”

“Shakespeare, nice.” Tony glanced over at the narrow bed where Steve rested. The doctor had provided advice on how slowly to proceed with the thawing process, but had been just as lost as the three of them about Steve’s chances of surviving. Useless. “I guess we can take it in shifts?” he suggested. “So he doesn’t wake up alone.”

Peggy looked as though she might protest until Bucky touched her arm lightly. “He wouldn’t want to see you make yourself sick on his behalf. Get some sleep. Tony will wake you if anything happens. And I’ll be able to take most of the night shift.”

Tony nodded. “No telling whether he’ll wake up today or next week or next month,” he pointed out. “We should pace ourselves.” He kissed Peggy’s cheek lightly, then firmly planted himself in the chair, pulling out his phone.

Bucky leaned over the chair and kissed Tony quite a bit more thoroughly. “Call at once if anything changes.”

“Obviously,” Tony said, after he’d pulled Bucky back for another kiss.

But nothing changed that day. Or the day after that. Aside from that, they all were warm, well fed, and sleeping regularly. Tony was starting to get bored, but it probably wasn’t worth the risk to move Steve again, now that he was stabilized.

He was taking his fifth -- or maybe sixth -- shift when something did change.

The radio was playing an old baseball game, mostly background noise that Tony didn’t even really notice anymore.

“Curve ball, high and outside for ball one. So the Dodgers are tied, 4-4. And the crowd well knows that with one swing of his bat, this fellow’s capable of making it a brand-new game again. Just an absolutely gorgeous day here at Ebbets Field. The Phillies have managed to tie up at 4-4. But the Dodgers have three men on. Pearson beaned Reiser in Philadelphia last month. Wouldn’t the youngster like a hit here to return the favor? Pete leans in. Here’s the pitch. Swung on. A line to the right. And it gets past Rizzo. Three runs will score. Reiser heads to third. Durocher’s going to wave him in. Here comes the relay, but they won’t get him.”

Steve made a soft noise, his breath starting as suddenly and steadily as a computer coming online. His eyelids juddered, like he was dreaming.

And then his eyes opened, wide and blue as the sky. He sat up. “Where am I?”

“Oh, hey, wow, you’re awake!” Tony flipped his screen and sent Peggy and Bucky a text. _He’s awake._ “How are you feeling?”

“What is this place? Who are you? _Where am I_?” Steve was huge -- it had been easy to ignore when he was dormant, but he was easily several inches taller than Bucky, and broad in the chest with a truly unfair shoulder to waist proportion.

“Hospital, sort of,” Tony said. “Specialized care. Try to relax; we don’t know how much damage your muscles and internal organs might have taken, so--”

“Let’s try this again, and how about you don’t lie to me,” Steve said. “The game, it’s from May, nineteen forty one. I know, ‘cause I was there. So, who are you?” That came out sounding very threatening, like Steve was one wrong word away from violence and mayhem.

“Look, I’ve listened to this game six times in the past week, sunshine. You’re not special.” Tony took a prudent step back, though. Christ, Steve was _big_. “Bucky thought you’d like something familiar to listen to. In case you woke up but couldn’t move right away, or something.”

“_Bucky_?” Steve demanded. “Bucky’s dead.”

“You bellowed?” Bucky asked, sticking his head in the door. “Of _course _I’m dead, it’s part of the job description.”

“Hey, babe, look who decided to join the land of the conscious.” Tony was absolutely _not_ angling to put Bucky between himself and Steve, no matter what it looked like.

“Buck?” Steve gasped, staring. “You fell, you _fell_, and I didn’t catch-- what _happened_?”

“Rather a lot,” Bucky said. “How are you feeling? Heart okay, nothing’s broken?”

“I’m fine,” Steve snapped. “Why--”

The why answered him in the form of Peggy, darting across the room as fast as she could go, practically hurling herself into Steve’s arms, panting breath turning into laughter turning into tears. 

“Oh, you horrible brute of a man,” Peggy yelled, thumping Steve’s chest several times with her fists. Tony wasn't worried; he’d seen her fight before, and if she’d meant to do him harm, she would have. This was just restless, reckless emotion.

“Hey, Auntie, give the man a little slack,” Tony suggested. “He’s been mostly dead all day.”

Steve’s arms went up to curl around Peggy’s back. “I missed our date, didn’t I?”

Peggy uttered a sob -- or a bark of laughter, it was hard to tell -- and hugged him. “You did. You missed it, and I waited-- oh, Steve, it’s been so long!”

Steve blinked. “How-- how long, it can’t be more than--” He trailed off, looking around as if seeing the fake room for the first time, as if noticing the subtle changes in Peggy and Bucky’s clothing -- they were both wearing jeans and tees, comfortable boots. 

“It’s been a long time, pal,” Bucky said. “We were the lucky ones. Slept through most of it. We-- it’s thanks to Tony here that we’ve got you at all. That I’m here, that any of us are alive, honestly.”

“Mostly thanks to my dad being batshit insane,” Tony corrected. “I’m just the conduit. But hey, it’s nice to see you alive and not insane,” he told Steve cheerfully.

“I don’t understand,” Steve said.

“Steven,” Peggy said, very gently, “it’s been over seventy _years_. You’ve been asleep most of my _life_.”

Steve touched Peggy’s curls with one tentative finger. “But you don’t look--”

“Uh, okay, that one’s on me. She just about died and I panicked,” Bucky said. “It’s a long story. Look, this-- this is Tony Stark. Howard’s _son_.” 

Steve actually looked up at Tony this time, as if cataloging his features, not just his place as _in-my-way. _“Oh. You couldn’t have waited for me, jerk? Went and got mated without me.”

“Excuse me, _what?_” Tony demanded. He looked from Steve to Bucky, almost _daring_ him to repeat that word.

Bucky spread his hands and ducked his chin. “We haven’t really talked about that,” he said. “We’ve been a little busy, and-- nothing’s _decided_.”

Steve snorted. “Not from where I sit. Looks-- _decided_.”

“_What’s_ decided?” Tony put in.

“You--” Bucky pointed a finger at Steve. “--can shut up and kiss your best girl for a bit. We’ll, er, get you something to eat.” Bucky was shaking when he turned to Tony. “Can I, uh, speak with you privately, for a few minutes?”

Tony glanced over at Steve and Peggy, who were already practically absorbed in each other again. He took a breath, let it go. “Yes, that’s probably a good idea.” He pushed out of the room.

***

Bucky locked the door behind them, more for Steve and Peggy’s privacy than anything else. Not that there was anyone, except the doctor, who came here, and the doctor only when he was called. It was, Bucky decided, the thought that counted.

And the thought was: _I am going to kill Steve right after I settle this, and I don’t want him to go anywhere in the meanwhile._

There wasn’t lots of space in their lodgings: the bedroom that he and Tony had claimed by virtue of it being the largest, Peggy’s room, and the fake recovery bedroom they’d set up for Steve. A small kitchen that had an even smaller table shoved in it, and a minuscule common room. 

The common room wasn’t very comfortable, so Bucky passed it with a shrug, leading the way to their bedroom.

“I… uh…” Bucky wasn’t quite sure where to begin, and Tony was standing there with his hands on his hips and his eyebrow up, as if demanding an explanation. “It doesn’t _have to be_ settled,” Bucky tried.

“That would be more comforting if I knew exactly _what_ was being settled, here,” Tony pointed out.

“It’s not _irreversible _or anything.” Bucky said, wanting to calm Tony down, and feeling like he was winding himself up instead. “I’ve been feeding off you. A lot. You don’t seem to dislike it.” 

“Well, no. There’s that whole...” Tony waved a hand between them. “...thing. And, you know. You’re pretty awesome.”

“Thing is,” Bucky said, and he squirmed inwardly, uncomfortable. Because Tony was probably going to be mad. Or upset. Or something. “The more of my blood you drink, the more blood I take from you-- well, you know you heal faster now, that you can feel the pull between you and I, between you and Peggy. The more we do that, the less… human you really are. And it might be... Difficult --” Difficult, that was a good word. “-- for you to stop. There’s… cravings involved.”

Tony stared at him for a long minute. “Are you saying you’re _addictive?_ Like... what, like smoking? Heroin? Cocaine? _Pringles?_”

“Yes, kinda like that. There’s some discomfort, especially if we stop suddenly,” Bucky said. “There’s two-- well, philosophies, or lifestyles, maybe? I don’t know. Two schools of thought, for vampires, on the whole thing. The first group, the majority, really, they don’t feed off the same humans time and time again. Sometimes they just kill their meals, but mostly, they just-- graze, I suppose? And if they accidentally bind someone, they just leave them behind. The human suffers a while, and then gets on with their life. Like an illness, you can recover from it.”

“Whereas you fall into the other group,” Tony surmised. “So what’s your philosophy on the subject?”

“I like having… someone that I’m comfortable with,” Bucky said. “With the Commandos, I fed, and we all benefited from it. But I always supposed there might be more, with someone that I exclusively fed from. Who drank my blood, who… became utterly necessary for my survival. Your blood nourishes me, even more now, that it did when we started. I can take less, and still feel renewed. Eventually, other blood might not be enough. We become… bonded. Mated.”

Tony studied him, expression still and blank, though Bucky could hear the fast, heavy thrum of Tony’s pulse. “And that’s something you’re willing to have happen?” Tony’s head cocked to the side, just a little. “What happens to you when I die, and you can’t have my blood anymore?”

Bucky couldn’t help it, he reached out, brushed his knuckles lightly over Tony’s cheekbone. So frail, so ethereal. So… very _Tony_. “You won’t… I mean, yes, you can still die, but it’s not like… you’ll get old and die. As long as you drink… you won’t age. You won’t get sick.” _You’ll be mine, with me, forever. And I’m not entirely sure outliving you is anything I want. _He didn’t say that, though. Too needy. Too much. Too terrifyingly obsessed.

“Huh.” Tony leaned against the door, still watching Bucky with those bright, observant eyes. “Your friend seems to think it’s already a done deal. Why? What can he see?”

“He might be able to smell it, actually,” Bucky said, the thought suddenly occurring. “But-- it doesn’t have to be that way, if you don’t want it, and I know, _I know, _I should have told you sooner, I should have warned you. But I didn’t… I didn’t want to send you away and never see you again.” His throat ached, everything in his body tightened up in denial of that thought. He-- “It’s not the blood, it’s not the bond, it’s… Tony, it’s _you_. You that I don’t want to be without. And I just kept pushing it aside, thinking I’d deal with it later. And now it’s later, and I’m sorry.”

“Yeah? And what, exactly, are you sorry for?”

“I’m sorry I’m so selfish,” Bucky said. “That I’ve made it hard for you-- to get on with a normal life if that’s what you wanted. But I’m not-- I’m not sorry for how I feel, or how much I want you-- _need you_ in my existence. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, so that it would have been an easier choice for you to make. I don’t really have any justification. It’s not decided, it’s not permanent. We can… fix it. I just… I don’t want to. I love you, and I don’t want you to go, and that’s not fair, it’s not fair to you, and that… that’s what I’m sorry about.” 

Tony’s expression softened, the tense set of his shoulders loosening. “You’d really let me go, if I said that’s what I wanted,” he said, and it didn’t sound like a question. More like a revelation. “Even though it would hurt both of us.”

“You’re not a prisoner, or a slave,” Bucky said. “You’re not… You don’t belong to me, you belong to _yourself_. I’m not… I wouldn’t do that to you.” 

“Yeah.” He straightened, squared his shoulders. “Well, a normal life was never going to be in the cards for me, anyway. Let’s do it.”

Bucky was shaking, he knew it, shivering with emotion, with need and desire and desperation. “Would-- will you stay with me? Be mine, and I’ll be yours? Is that… Is that something you want?”

Tony huffed. “You are _such_ a romantic,” he complained, but he stepped forward, into Bucky’s space, close enough for Bucky to feel the heat of him. He cupped Bucky’s face in his hands, very gently. “I love you too, you know.”

“I didn’t know,” Bucky said, simply. “But now I do.” He bent his head, and let Tony draw him into a kiss, irresistible as gravity affected a falling object. 

Tony kissed him slow and careful and very, very thoroughly, and Bucky didn’t need to breathe, but he was beginning to wonder how _Tony_ was doing without oxygen before they finally broke apart. “Yeah,” Tony said, and grinned suddenly. “Let’s get vampire married.”

Bucky snorted. “There’s not really-- you know, a ceremony or anything. It just… happens. Is happening. All we have to do is keep doing what we’ve been doing. Loving each other. Sharing blood. Sharing-- everything. Our existence.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “You’re taking the fun out of it.” He turned, pulling Bucky after him, backing toward the bed. “Come make love to me, then.”

“With pleasure.”

Which was, Bucky reflected as he nudged Tony onto the bed, the whole point.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Smut-averse readers, click here to skip over the smuts at the beginning. :)

_My love_, Bucky had called him, and _beloved_, and Tony had absolutely not let himself read anything into those endearments, not even several weeks into their peculiar partnership when Tony had begun to suspect that he, himself, was falling hard and fast.

Bucky was a vampire, immortal, and even if he’d slept away most of the last lifetime, he’d go on for many more lifetimes. Centuries. Maybe even millennia. Why would he tie himself to one short-lived mortal?

But as Tony laid back on their narrow bed, Bucky looked down at him with something more than hunger, more than lust, and Tony couldn’t even begin to make himself believe that Bucky’s feelings were so shallow. Not even if he’d wanted to. And god, he didn’t want to believe that. He wanted Bucky to love him, wholly and madly and completely.

He reached up, skated fingertips down the side of Bucky’s face, along his jaw and down his neck, hand curling around Bucky’s neck, the inert jugular there, just under the surface of that pale skin. “Mine,” he whispered, full of awe and wonder at the thought.

“As long as you wish it,” Bucky promised. “I never knew-- that it could be like this. I thought, when I was first changed, that I was… alien. That I would never feel like this. That I _couldn’t_. And you came in and brought me your own personal sunlight.”

“Romantic,” Tony teased. He was pretty sure Bucky had already figured out that he secretly loved it. “You’re better than any drink or drug I’ve ever had. My body is stronger and faster with your blood in me -- but so is my brain. I can’t wait to see what happens.” He curled his fingers in Bucky’s hair, pulling until Bucky closed the distance between them to kiss him again.

Bucky settled himself in the vee of Tony’s thighs, his weight pressing Tony into the soft bed, his body lean, hard muscle against Tony’s. “Anything you want. _Everything_ you want. My Tony, you’re so… you deserve the world.” He kissed a line down Tony’s jaw, nuzzling at the soft spot at the hinge, a flick of his tongue that led to a quick nip. No blood, not yet, but the sensation of being bitten, of being feasted on. 

Tony arched into it, let himself feel the heavy, unyielding weight of Bucky against him. He tipped his head back, turning to expose his throat, begging without words. He wrapped one leg around Bucky’s, trying to pull them closer together.

Bucky took the hint for what it was, continuing the tease, delicious and tormenting, his teeth a light scrape on Tony’s neck, his tongue pushing at the skin. Each kiss, Bucky rolled himself against Tony, rutting, rubbing. He pushed Tony’s shirt up, exposing his belly and ribs to the not-quite-warm-enough air. Thumbed along Tony’s chest until he tweaked one nipple, and when Tony gasped, Bucky bit down, fangs piercing Tony’s skin with a sharp zing, that ached for only a moment, before the vampire gave suck, flooding Tony with sensation, need, desire. 

“Oh god...” Tony pushed his hands into Bucky’s hair, holding on. He rocked upward, seeking friction, the cool press of Bucky’s body a balm to his overheated skin. “Bucky, yes, god, yes.” He fumbled downward, pulled at Bucky’s shirt gracelessly, needing more of Bucky to touch.

“I’m here,” Bucky said, licking at the wound to seal it. He pulled back a little, enough to pull his shirt all the way off, to unbuckle his belt and shuck his jeans. And then he was back, his fingers sliding down Tony’s chest, and then following those cool fingertips with his mouth, kissing a line right down Tony’s belly. 

Tony gasped, writhing, pleasure so great it teetered on the cusp of pain. What the fuck was it going to feel like when Bucky actually touched his cock? Every time, it took him by surprise, how _intense_ the sensation was, how fast that side-effect of the vampire’s bite took effect. Made even more intense by the fact that they’d been weeks in search of Steve, too cramped (and too public) in the shelter to do more than kiss and snuggle. This wasn’t the first time they’d had sex since returning to something like civilization, but the other times had been fast and needy and overshadowed with the stress and worry of caring for Steve and Peggy.

This was theirs, this was just for them. This was _perfect_.

“Lift up,” Bucky told him, getting Tony’s fly undone, fingers tugging at the seams of Tony’s pants. As soon as Tony arched up, the jeans were down, off one leg, and stuck on the other, but it hardly mattered, because Bucky was nuzzling at his skin, licking the tender crease where his hip was, and then down, against his thigh.

“Oh _shit_,” Tony groaned. He twisted, trying in vain to get Bucky’s mouth where he wanted it, _needed_ it. “Honey, please...”

Bucky nipped him again, teeth sinking into the big vein in his thigh. A brush of his tongue sealed that, as well, and made him so sensitive, so desperate and needy that when Bucky yanked Tony’s drawers off and licked him, from balls to crown, Tony thought he was, in fact, going to die from pleasure. Everything in him tensed and coiled, ached and burned for it.

Tony let out a whimper, too overwhelmed to even push into the touch, unable to decide what he even _wanted_, except for Bucky to keep touching him, to never ever stop touching him, licking and petting and teasing. Every time Tony thought he couldn’t feel any _more_, Bucky pushed him to a new height of sensation. “Bucky,” he pleaded, “sweetheart. Need you.”

There was a soft rush of cool air as Bucky knelt up, mouth pink and swollen, eyes black with desire. He reached over, pressing harder on Tony for a moment, to scramble around for the lube, and then he was back, kneeling between Tony’s splayed legs. “I need--” Bucky said, breaching him gently. “I need you, too. So much, my love.”

For a moment it was too much, the overwhelming sensation and the overpowering love. “Oh god.” Tony was shaking with need, with desperation and emotion. “Love you,” he groaned, throwing his arm over his face. “Please...”

Bucky plied him open, fingers slick and subtle inside him, and then that wicked mouth came down, licked a stripe up Tony’s length, nuzzled at the head, even as his fingers worked, harder, faster. He couldn’t wait, he couldn’t, not any longer, and then he could, riding along the edge of it as Bucky’s hands held him down, lifted him up, all at the same time. 

When Bucky finally positioned himself, spreading Tony’s thighs wide and nudging against his pliant entrance, he was almost lost in it, the slow, steady rhythm of it, like the beating of an ancient heart. “I have you,” Bucky told him, and then _moved_.

“Oh,” Tony breathed, and he wrapped his arms around Bucky’s shoulders and tucked his face up against Bucky’s neck. His body answered every motion of Bucky’s until they were moving in perfect harmony, straining and striving and climbing together, a peak so high that breathing was all but impossible, every gasp torn from his throat.

Bucky made a high, reedy sound, and then touched his own neck with one nail, dragging a shallow cut over the skin. “Drink, Tony,” he begged, voice hoarse and low. “Drink, be mine.”

Tony licked at the cut, a tease, knowing what the rush of that blood would feel like. Knowing that it would bind him ever closer to Bucky. The taste slid over his tongue, rich and sweet, and he shivered. “Yours,” he promised and closed his mouth over the wound and _pulled_, sucking until his mouth was full and he had to swallow. And again, the pleasure of it echoing and magnifying the feel of Bucky in him and around him, every moment more beautiful than the last.

Bucky thrust into him, harder, faster. The sounds of their bodies together were rich, lush, needy, and Bucky panted for air he didn’t need, just to make sweet sounds in Tony’s ear, to cry out for him, to moan his name. “Beloved,” he gasped, shuddering. His hand went to Tony’s cock, stroking him in time with those frantic movements, rocking them together. “Tony--” 

His name, in that voice, half-wrecked with need -- for _him!_ \-- was, it turned out, the final tipping point. Tony’s entire body seemed to flash into flames, white-hot and utterly exquisite. He muffled his cry against Bucky’s neck and shoulder as his body shook, entirely beyond his own control. “God, Bucky, sweetheart,” he gasped. “_God_.”

Bucky didn’t quite collapse on him, but seemed to melt over him, heated comfort that filled all the empty places around Tony’s body. “You are so beautiful,” Bucky murmured, kissing his throat, his shoulder, the flat plane of his chest. “Everything about you is perfect and delicious.” He licked Tony’s skin, as if proving his point. “And I love you.”

Tony sighed, going boneless and sated, one hand lazily petting Bucky’s arm and shoulder and hair, wherever he could reach. “I love you, too.”

***

There weren’t lots of things Bucky envied in the world -- he had love, a second chance at his life -- but when Steve came inside from the cold, standing in the sunlight, with Bucky not quite cringing in the back of the room, away from any possible sunbeams, he was envious. 

He would never see the sun again, except in a picture. Never feel the heat from its rays or the brilliance of it against the sky. 

Bucky always told himself he didn’t miss it, because lying about it kept him from feeling too miserable, and it wasn’t like he could change it.

“Good nap?” Bucky asked, just to be an ass.

“Jerk,” Steve shot back. The back of his neck flushed pink, though, which meant probably yes. “How was your ‘talk’?” Bucky could _hear_ the quotes.

“Satisfactory,” Bucky said. “It’s settled. Or at least as _settled _ever gets with mortals.” Bucky said it as if he was more than a mere thirty years old, in actual lived experience. But he could feel the decades stretching out in front of him, decades that could become centuries. Provided that he was careful, and cautious. And maybe just a little reckless. “I know Peggy told you how long we were both asleep, but-- did it take? It’s a lot to think about, really.”

“Not gonna lie,” Steve said. “It may take me a bit. Some of the stuff she’s been showing me is pretty keen, though. Living in the future might not be so bad, huh?” He made a face. “She told me about Zola, too. I thought he was gone.”

“Yeah, we might-- I hate to ask you to jump right back into the fight, pal, but I think it’s gonna be an us or them kinda thing,” Bucky said. “They already sent someone after Tony, and I don’t think it’ll be too long before they figure Peggy’s important. I hate it, I hate putting you all in danger like this.” He got up, and for something to do with his hands, started brewing coffee. The scent, he figured, would bring Tony out. Probably.

“Ah, hell, Buck, you know I can’t just sit back and watch while someone like that is around, hurting people and who knows what else. You worry about your boy. I’ll be fine.”

“Didn’t think you could, really,” Bucky said, keeping his back to Steve to hide his smile. And it was warming and reassuring to know that Steve had his back. No matter what. “You’re not the kind of guy to sit on the sidelines. Which I s’pose is why they picked you. Maybe it’ll be easy. We’ll go, argue with my sire for a while, and threaten him into leavin’ us alone. I don’t really want to take on the entire vampire kingdoms.”

“We don’t have to take on all the kingdoms,” Steve pointed out in that infuriatingly reasonable tone of his. “Just your sire.”

“We’ll see,” Bucky said. “Zola’s death will create a power struggle, as everyone scrambles for his territory, his alliances. Could get messy.”

“Not if you step into the power vacuum,” Steve suggested.

“Morning,” yawned Tony, shuffling out of their bedroom in nothing but boxers and a bathrobe that he hadn’t bothered to tie shut. “Nature abhors a vacuum,” he told Steve, his eyes opening only to slits as he made his way toward the coffee. “Why are we vacuuming? There’s a staff for that, I’m sure.”

“When we remove my sire from his position of power,” Bucky said. “Someone will have to fill that space, or it’ll be chaos. For the most part, humans don’t know we exist. It’s safer for everyone -- even the humans -- to keep it that way.”

“Yeah, I can see that.” Tony found a mug and filled it with coffee. “How does that get decided? Do vampires have heirs? Is it a free-for-all kind of thing?”

Bucky shuddered, thinking about Zola, his sire, his… creator. “_There is only power, and those too weak to seize it_.” He picked up a spoon and studied it, trying to find answers in the distorted reflection of the room. He wasn’t in there, he would never be there. “If I fight-- if I kill Zola and I can hold up against his allies, then, technically, it would be me. Even if he never meant for me to exist at all. I’m still of his blood.”

“You’re saying you’d be, like, vampire royalty?” Tony eyed him over the rim of his mug. “Sounds exhausting.”

“I would not be particularly good at it,” Bucky said. “I’m not really very old, and my upbringing -- vampirically speaking -- isn’t very… standard.”

“There’s a standard for teaching people how to be vampires?” He glanced over at Steve. “Is he serious?”

Steve shrugged. “I don’t know. I never had to deal with the whole... _society_ bullshit.”

“You’re not a vampire,” Bucky pointed out. “You don’t count. But yeah, there’s supposed to be a whole initiation period and training and-- being introduced to your sire’s sire, and all that bullshit. I never got that. I just… died. I wasn’t supposed to. Zola used me as one of his attack dogs for a while, and then… I fell in with Howard and Erskine. They trapped me, really, but I think it was more like _rescued_.”

“Sounds like you’d be doing them a favor to off the guy,” Tony opined.

“Well, I don’t know that we’ll have a lot of choice,” Bucky said. “If we want to have any sort of life, we’ll… have to gather allies, see how things look. What can be done. We’ll cross the bridge of what happens after we kill Zola, I guess, when we get there.” He wasn’t sure it could be done.

But he also pretty sure they wouldn’t be left alone, either. And if it came down to it, he’d rather fight for Tony, for their right to exist, than let Zola’s lackeys come for them.

“Might as well take the fight to them,” Steve said, echoing Bucky’s thoughts.

Tony toasted Steve with his coffee mug. “Better than randomly falling in a hole one day and waking up in a cave with some asshole sneering at you.”

Bucky scoffed. “I don’t think there was anything _worse than_ that.”

“I can think of a few things, but yeah, that was not high on the _Do it again sometime_ list.” He snuggled up against Bucky’s side, worming up under Bucky’s arm, then glanced at Steve. “What about Aunt Peggy? Is she in?”

“Just between you, me, and the walls,” Bucky said, smirking, “I think Steve wore her right out.”

“Well, I figured _that_,” Tony said. “I meant, is she on board with this whole _kill Zola, take over the kingdom_ plan?”

“At this point, I think she’d shoot me rather than get left out,” Bucky said. “We’ll ask to be sure, but I’m fairly confident that she’ll agree. She’s still mad at me, and she can’t lord it over my head if we get killed off. Someone has to look out for us and make the plans, right?”

Peggy didn’t quite slam open the bedroom door, but it was a close thing. “Don’t take my name in vain, young man,” she said.

“You’re going to come along and help, right Aunt Peggy?” Tony asked brightly.

Steve managed to put himself between Peggy and everyone else. “Entirely up to you, of course,” he put in. “But we’d welcome your expertise.”

“Of course you would,” Peggy said. “You all would rather muck it up, I expect. Of course I’m going.”

“Great!” Tony slurped from his mug obnoxiously. “But we should go back to New York first. Regroup a little. Do some planning. This isn’t going to be as simple as finding Steve.”

“Nothing worthwhile is ever simple, or easy,” Peggy said. “But the right thing is always worth doing.”

Bucky rolled his eyes and sighed. “Look at them, the pair of ‘em,” he said. “They’re just… made for each other. It’s kind of sickening, really.”

“Well, hello there, Mr. Pot, I’m Mr. Kettle,” Steve said, rolling his eyes. “We got any pressing reason to hang around this place any longer?”

“Once it’s dark and James can travel,” Peggy said, “then I am thoroughly for going somewhere warmer. Not all of us can hibernate like a bear.”

“I’ll go make the travel arrangements,” Tony volunteered. “You call Nicky, Auntie. He’s bound to have something to help with our next great quest.” He tipped his head to capture a kiss from Bucky, then practically bounced across the room and out the door. As it closed behind him, Bucky heard, “_Jesus_, that’s bright. Why does it have to be so bright? I’m not going to miss you, nope...”

“New York, huh?” Steve said, shaking his head. “Seems fitting, really. Full circle or something. Reckon you can still get a decent ‘dog, in the future?”

“Guess we’ll find out,” Bucky said. It was a relief, really, knowing that he wasn’t going into this blind. Or alone. In fact, he could feel Tony, a bright spot of heat in his mind, out making their travel arrangements, and Bucky knew for certain. He’d never be alone again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap on this story!
> 
> On Thursday (yes, Thanksgiving, for our fellow U.S. folks) we will kick off the holiday season with a bit of utter fluff we wrote for the [Marvel HEA Hallmark Event](https://heamarvel.tumblr.com/), called _The Christmas Unicorn_!
> 
> That will run three days a week (our usual Tues/Thurs/Sun slots) until it's done, and then we'll take a couple of days off (! I know!) and be back the week of Christmas with two new stories that we are really excited about!

**Author's Note:**

> Just in time for Hallowe'en, enjoy a vampire story! As always, please feel free to come and flail at us on tumblr or pillowfort (same usernames we have here).


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